Breaking up is difficult. During her and Johnny Depp’s continuing defamation trial, Amber Heard is dissatisfied with her public image, and her public relations staff is paying the price.
According to a source close to Heard, 36, she unexpectedly fired her prior PR team at Precision Strategies on Monday, May 2, because she was “upset over coverage from the trial.”
Before taking the stand to give her own highly anticipated testimony, the Aquaman actress replaced her prior crisis management team with Shane Communications.
When Depp’s former business manager, The Management Group, claimed that the actor needed to hire a psychotherapist for his “compulsive spending” tendencies, the newly hired firm — which is managed by CEO David Shane – previously lobbied against him.
Heard is set to testify in court for the first time this week in Fairfax, Virginia. The experiment is in its fourth week of a seven-week testing period.
Last week, the Sweeney Todd star, who was dismissed by Disney for the sixth chapter of Pirates of the Caribbean after Heard claimed he was abusive in their marriage, testified as his own witness. From 2015 through 2017, the couple was married.
“It’s kind of funny when you’re Cinderella one day and Quasimodo the next,” Depp remarked in court on April 19 regarding how his career allegedly suffered as a result of Heard’s allegations. “Neither I nor my children, nor the people who have believed in me for all these years, deserved that.” I didn’t want any of those folks to think I had cheated them, lied to them, or was a con artist. “Honesty is something I take pride in.”
In the midst of the protracted court struggle, Depp stated that he wanted to “clear the record.” “I never came close to striking Ms. Heard in any way, nor have I ever struck any lady in my life,” he testified under oath.
The California native has filed a $50 million lawsuit against Heard, alleging that his ex-wife published a libelous op-ed for The Washington Post in 2018. The Texas native talked about surviving domestic abuse in the essay, but she didn’t mention her ex-husband by name.
The Into The Woods actor said on April 20 that he brought the libel claim against Heard because it was “the only time I was able to fight back and use my own voice.” On the same day, audio recordings of the actor arguing with Heard were played, including one in which he said that if their disagreements continued to escalate, things could get violent between them.
The live-streamed trial has gotten a lot of attention for showing some of the more stormy elements of Depp and Heard’s marriage, including an episode in which Heard allegedly defecated on the Sleepy Hollow star’s bed.
On April 20, the Kentucky native claimed that his security officer, who had gone into the room to fetch his belongings for him, “showed him a picture” of his bed.
“He showed me a photograph on his phone of… it was a snapshot of our bed, and on my side of the bed, there was human feces,” Depp explained, adding that the “practical joke” occurred after Depp and Heard had a fight at her 30th birthday party.