A special guest. Johnny Depp made a surprise appearance at a Jeff Beck concert as the jury in his ongoing defamation trial against Amber Heard began deliberation.
The Edward Scissorhands star, 58, joined the guitarist, 77, onstage at his show in Sheffield, England, on Sunday, May 29, to perform their 2020 duet “Isolation.” Depp, who accompanied Beck on guitar during their performance, also covered Marvin Gaye‘s “What’s Going On” and “Little Wing” by Jimi Hendrix. The Jeff Beck Group frontman is currently on tour in the U.K., and fans are speculating that the Oscar nominee will join him for future concerts in London.
Depp’s performance comes in the midst of his defamation trial against his ex-wife, 36, which is based on a 2018 op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post in which she claimed she was a survivor of domestic violence. Though the Aquaman actress did not mention the Pirates of the Caribbean star in the article, he alleged that her words have negatively impacted his career and life.
“It’s not about Johnny. The only person who thinks it is about Johnny is Johnny,” the Texas native said while on the stand earlier this month. “It’s about me and what happened to me.”
The jury in the case began deliberation on Friday, May 27, and will regroup on May 31.
According to The Washington Post, the seven jurors will attempt to answer whether or not the claims in Heard’s piece “imply or insinuate anything about Depp” and if so, “whether they were false and/or made with actual malice.” They will also consider Heard’s countersuit against Depp and determine whether both are entitled to damages.
During her testimony earlier this month, Heard alleged that her ex-husband had a history of violence in their relationship. “I struggle to find the words on how painful this is. This is horrible for me to sit here for weeks and relive everything here with people that I knew — some well, some not,” she told the court. “This is the most painful and difficult thing I’ve ever gone through for sure.”
On May 4, she claimed that Depp slapped her for the first time after she made a joke about his “Wino Forever” tattoo. (The Lone Ranger star initially got a tattoo reading, “Winona Forever” in the 1990s, as a tribute to his then-girlfriend, Winona Ryder, which he changed after they split in 1993.) “He slapped me across the face and I laughed,” Heard said during her testimony. “I laughed because I didn’t know what else to do. I thought this must be a joke because I didn’t know what was going on. I just stared at him thinking that he was going to start laughing too.”
She added, “As a woman, I had never been hit like that,” before noting to the jury that the alleged incident is something she “will never forget.”
Depp, for his part, has emphatically denied the Magic Mike XXL star’s allegations of abuse while giving his own testimony last month. “Never did I myself reach the point of striking Ms. Heard in any way, nor have I ever struck any woman in my life,” the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas actor told the jury on April 19. “It’s been six years of trying times. It’s pretty strange when one day you’re Cinderella, so to speak, then 0.6 seconds you’re Quasimodo. I didn’t deserve that, nor did my children, nor did the people who have believed in me for all these years.” The Kentucky native also claimed that Heard had been violent toward him during their relationship.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for confidential support.
