Johnny Depp admits feeling ‘blinding hurt’ after reading Amber Heard's op-ed during defamation trial

Johnny Depp during his recent defamation trial detailed how an op-ed penned by Amber Heard damaged his career.

By Pinkvilla Desk

Updated on Apr 26, 2022 | 04:39 PM IST | 1M

Reading op-ed felt ‘like somebody had hit me in the back of the head with a 2x4,’ Depp says

*Trigger Warning*

Johnny Depp said in court that he felt "blinding hurt" after reading Amber Heard's op-ed before being pulled from the Pirates of the Caribbean series. Mr Depp and Ms Heard's defamation trial started on Monday, April 11 in which Depp claims she defamed him in an op-ed published in The Washington Post in December 2018.

However, as per The Independent, on being asked how the actor felt after reading Heard's op-ed in The Washington Post, in which Heard claimed she was a victim of domestic violence, Johnny said, “it was like somebody had hit me in the back of the head with a 2x4." For those unversed, in her 2018 op-ed, Ms Heard wrote that “like many women, I had been harassed and sexually assaulted by the time I was of college age. But I kept quiet — I did not expect filing complaints to bring justice. And I didn’t see myself as a victim."

While Mr. Depp is not named in the article, his legal team claims it bears a "clear implication that Mr. Depp is a domestic abuser," which they claim is "categorically and demonstrably false." Johnny Depp is seeking "not less than USD 50 million" in damages. Meanwhile, Depp was also surprised when he discovered that Disney would no longer cast him as Captain Jack Sparrow in future "Pirates of the Caribbean" films. He said that it was roughly 2-3 days after the op-ed, alluding to an interview Disney's Sean Bailey gave to The Hollywood Reporter, which was published two days after Heard's article and implied that the series will continue without him.

"Captain Jack Sparrow was a character I built from the ground up and was something that I, of course, put a lot of [myself] into the character and also having worked on these films with these people and added much of myself, much of my own re-writing of the dialogue and scenes and jokes," claimed Depp.

ALSO READ: Johnny Depp calls Amber Heard's domestic abuse claims 'diabolical', vows he never 'struck' her