The Johnny Depp versus The Sun trial, now two weeks in, is sprawling, including more characters than a 19th-century installment in the Russian canon, each bringing their own complicated versions of similar stories. To wit, enter Laura Divenere, decorator to the stars and Elon Musk. She gave a written testimony in favor of Depp for the other lawsuit he filed in Virginia. It was not filed but leaked to The Blast last summer. In it, Divenere claims that she didn’t see Amber Heard’s bruises after an alleged fight between her and Depp on May 21, 2016, among other things.
But in court on Friday, The Sun’s lawyers played a recording that Heard had made without Divenere’s knowledge in which the decorator said that Depp’s U.S. attorney Adam Waldman was “the biggest asshole under the sun” who had accused her of being a part of Heard’s alleged conspiracy to frame Depp. She testified via video that Waldman wrote the majority of the statement, and she just signed it because she felt “pressured” into it. A text message was also read aloud in court from Waldman to her in which he asks her if she wants to “remain on the side of the hoax.”
Heard made the recording after Divernere submitted her statement, but Depp’s defense read a follow-up email in court. In it, which she wrote after the recording in March 2020, Divenere again confirmed that she did not see bruises on Heard, nor witnessed any violence on his behalf.
Waldman also posted part of the email on his own Twitter account, which became a point of order itself in court Monday, mostly regarding his use of the confusing turn of phrase “in memoriam.” Adam Wolanski, an attorney for The Sun’s publisher News Group Newspapers, said to the court, “We would ask that [Waldman] refrains from posting further macabre, threatening and sinister messages about witnesses whose evidence he does not like.”
David Sherborne, Depp’s U.K. lawyer tried to explain. The phrase “in memoriam” is not a literal reference to remember the passed but a nod to evidence he feels is a lie. Justice Andrew Nicol “said the phrase was unwelcome,” as the Daily Mail put it. Waldman told the tabloid, “Despite working for Elon Musk, Ms. Divenere’s recent email to her own and The Sun’s lawyers read out in court reaffirmed her sworn testimony that saw no bruises the week of May 21, 2016, was not coerced into anything and completed and signed her own final statement.”
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