Johnny Depp’s Lawyer Calls Amber Heard ‘a Compulsive Liar’ on Last Day of Actor’s U.K. Libel Case

Johnny Depp’s lawyer said the actor chose to “expose all the most intimate details of his private life” in the legal proceedings to clear his name.Johnny Depp’s legal team is claiming his ex-wife Amber Heard is an “unreliable witness” and “compulsive liar.”

On Tuesday, in closing the Pirates of the Caribbean actor’s libel case against News Group Newspapers (NGN), parent company of U.K. tabloid The Sun (which published a 2018 article calling Depp, 57, a “wife beater”), attorney David Sherborne told the London courtroom that Heard, 34, was the “abuser” in their marriage, not Depp.

“From the big points to the small points, Ms. Heard has proved herself to be a wholly unreliable witness, and, frankly, a compulsive liar — and I don’t say that lightly,” Sherborne said in closing remarks, according to The Guardian.

“… If it was a man who had said what Ms. Heard said and who had admitted to what she admitted to, if this was Mr. Depp for example, and it was the other way around,” he added. “Can you imagine what consternation there would be?”

Sherborne went on to say that Heard adopted the public persona of domestic violence advocacy after garnering media attention when she came forward with abuse claims against Depp, which he denied. “She has picked up her theme and run with it,” said Sherborne.

The lawyer said that Depp decided to “expose all the most intimate details of his private life” in this weeks-long “painful” court case to disprove the Sun article. “He has never hit a woman in his entire life. Period, full stop, nada,” Sherborne said.Sasha Wass, the defense for News Group Newspapers, gave closing statements in court on Monday, saying that Depp’s alleged physical and emotional abuse inflicted on his ex-wife came from a misogynistic place.

Wass claimed that Depp manufactured a “misogynistic persona of [Heard] as the stereotype of a nagging woman,” accusing her of being a cheater and gold digger. (Depp previously testified that he felt Heard targeted him with an “agenda” to boost her finances and career by marrying him.)

In Heard’s witness statement obtained by PEOPLE, the actress claimed that Depp had “threatened to kill” her and that she had felt like a hostage.Heard and Depp tied the knot in 2015. In May 2016, she sought a domestic violence restraining order against him, accusing him of abusing her. Depp denied the claims, and the former couple settled their divorce out of court in August 2016. She donated her $7 million divorce settlement to charity. Both actors signed NDAs barring them from discussing their relationship publicly.

Depp sued her for defamation in the U.S. after she wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post in December 2018 in which she described being an alleged victim of domestic violence. While she never mentioned Depp by name, the actor’s lawsuit called her allegations against him a “hoax.”