Depp v Heard: second week of trial takes sheen off celebrity glamour

Court – and public – hears a painful story of substance abuse, a deeply dysfunctional marriage, professional woes and plotting

Actor Amber Heard speaks to her attorney in the courtroom at the Fairfax County Circuit Court in Fairfax, Va., Thursday, April 28, 2022. Picture: Michael Reynolds/Pool Photo via AP

Amber Heard has sat impassively through 10 days of Johnny Depp’s $50m defamation against her stemming from their volatile 15-month marriage. Next week, the 36-year-old actor will get to present her version of events in support of a $100m counterclaim for nuisance.

Whoever prevails in the end, and perhaps neither, the trial between the pair has been an unedifying spectacle of a horrifying relationship that so far only Depp has had the opportunity to present to the court.