Herd fell into a fit of blind rage, sending incoherent text messages at 4 p.m. and was often drunk and gambling illegally, Kate James testified in a video played in court Thursday during Depp’s defamation lawsuit against Herd.
Depp, on the other hand, was very calm, almost shy, “like an absolute master of the South,” James said.
The Pirates of the Caribbean actress accused Herd of indirectly defaming him in a 2018 opinion article she wrote for the Washington Post. Herd refers to herself in the article as “a public figure representing domestic abuse.”
The track does not name Depp. But his lawyers say he is clearly referring to a restrictive order that Herd requested in May 2016, shortly after Depp told her he wanted a divorce.
Depp denies abusing Herd, but Herd’s lawyers say the evidence will prove he did.
The actor’s denials, they claim, lack credibility because he drank often and used drugs to the point of killing and not remembering anything he did.
Depp is sitting in the courtroom after a break on Thursday. He denies abusing Herd, but her lawyers say the evidence will show she did. (Shawn Thew / Pool Photo / The Associated Press)
The video testimony from James offered the opposite view: Depp was the peaceful one, he said, while Herd was often drunk and verbally abusive, including her mother and sister.
“Her poor sister was treated like a dog you kick, basically,” James said.
Heard was “very dramatic”: a former assistant
James, who worked for Herd from 2012 to 2015, said she was being paid “very poorly”. She said she was hired with an initial salary of $ 25 an hour and that her duties ranged from picking up Herd’s dry cleaning to talking to the actress’s Hollywood agents. James said she was also instructed to take two copies of any magazine featuring Herd and store them in the garage so that Depp could not see them. Herd erupted in “blind rage” when James failed to place the magazines in the garage, James said. Regarding Herd and Depp’s time together, James said that Herd was a “very dramatic person” who was deeply insecure in the relationship. Heard often telephoned James to cry and complain about Depp, he said. “I remember one time he called me when she was alone in New York and she was crying and walking the streets,” James said. She said she told Herd to go inside: “I was worried the paparazzi might take a picture of her.”
Questions about the text message
Part of the testimony focused on a text message that Depp had sent to James after he and Herd broke up. Depp’s text read: “Come for a purple spot and we will make her flabby ass nice and good”. A lawyer asked if “spot of purple” meant wine and “she” meant Heard. James said she did not want to speculate. “That’s the way he writes,” James said of Depp. “It’s very random and you do not dispute it… He writes in a very abstract way.” Both Depp and Heard are expected to testify at the Fairfax County Circuit Court in Virginia, which is scheduled for six weeks, along with actors Paul Bettany and James Franco and tech businessman Elon Musk.
