In the ongoing defamation suit between the two exes, Amber Heard’s legal team no longer intends to bring Johnny Depp to testify again.
PEOPLE reported on May 12 that Depp, 58, would be questioned again under oath by Heard’s legal team. Depp was still scheduled to testify on Monday as of Saturday.
However, a source close to Heard told PEOPLE on Monday that Heard’s defence team no longer plans to bring Depp back.
“Calling Depp back to the stand would be about as useful to us as a bicycle is to a fish,” the insider says. “Everything Depp has testified on up to this point has been irrelevant to the heart of the case, and there’s no reason to assume that will change now.”
Heard, 36, is suing Depp for defamation, claiming that he orchestrated a campaign to discredit her and her abuse allegations as a “hoax,” ruining her reputation and career.
Depp is suing Heard for defamation over an op-ed she penned in 2018 about coming forward with domestic abuse charges, despite the fact that she didn’t mention him by name. He originally filed the $50 million lawsuit in 2019, but it was only started last month due to the pandemic. This week is the last week of testimony before closing arguments, which are scheduled for later this week.
The shift in legal strategy comes just hours after a source close to Depp told PEOPLE that his ex-girlfriend, supermodel Kate Moss, would appear in court via video connection in Fairfax, Virginia, on Wednesday. Moss, 48, was mentioned by Heard during her deposition earlier this month when she was asked about an alleged altercation between Depp and Heard’s sister, Whitney Henriquez.
Depp has stated that his “objective is the truth” as he works to clear his name in the trial, adding that he has lost “nothing short of everything” as a result of Heard’s allegations. Depp has testified that he has never hit Heard or any other woman in his life.
A spokeswoman for Heard stated in a statement last week, before the actress’s cross-examination began, “When the facts are on your side, defend the facts; when the facts are against you, pound away on the platform. Instead, we expect Depp’s lawyers to focus on the victim today.”
“We worry it will be embarrassing and desperate in equal measure,” the statement concluded. “And the truth — the overwhelming evidence — is not on Depp’s side. The essential issue of this trial, which we believe Depp’s lawyers will sidestep, is whether Amber or any woman has the right to free speech under the First Amendment.”
During Heard’s cross-examination, Depp’s lawyer Camille Vasquez asked if she was, in fact, Depp’s abuser in their previous relationship. Heard claimed that she “survived” Depp’s alleged abuse and was scared he’d eventually kill her.
“Doesn’t Mr. Depp happen to be your victim?” Heard replied, “No, ma’am,” to Vasquez’s question. “And once he left you, you continued to abuse him publicly by labelling him an abuser, didn’t you?” Vasquez asked. Heard said, “He is a bully. You can also search up either of us on the internet to see who is being abused.”
Prior to that, during Heard’s second day of testimony, a Depp spokeswoman published a statement casting doubt on her reliability and promising to “highlight the many fallacies” during cross-examination.
“As Mr. Depp’s counsel correctly predicted in their opening statements last month, Ms. Heard did indeed deliver ‘the performance of her life’ in her direct examination,” the statement read at the time. “While Ms. Heard’s stories have continued to grow new and convenient details, Mr. Depp’s recollections have remained exactly the same throughout the six painful years since her first allegations were made. His truth — the truth — is the same no matter the environment in which it is has been presented. The upcoming cross examination from Mr. Depp’s team will be most telling, and will certainly highlight the many fallacies Ms. Heard has now attempted to pass off as fact throughout her convoluted testimony.”
“As evidenced by the statement just released, Mr. Depp’s defamation claim is falling apart so rapidly that his counsel are turning from prosecutor to persecutor,” read the statement. “They boast that Mr. Depp’s story has not changed. If so, since he lost the domestic violence restraining order and he resoundingly lost the libel case in the U.K., perhaps he should consider a new strategy rather than the recycled approach of attacking the victim, and refusing to take responsibility for his own conduct.”
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