Warning: This article may contain some distressing information.
Amber Heard's lawyers have claimed that their client's former husband Johnny Depp has erectile dysfunction, which they say is "absolutely relevant" to their claim that he, according to them, chose to use a bottle to rape the Aquaman star.
On her second day on the witness stand in early May, Amber Heard sobbed as she shared her alleged account of sexual assault.
She recounted a fight she'd had in Australia in March 2015 with her ex-husband, who she claims sexually assaulted her with a liquor bottle.
She said: “I’ve never been so scared in my entire life" and recalled how Depp purportedly got on top of her during a particularly violent fight, after which she tried to tell him that he was "really hurting me".
The 36-year-old actress continued: “I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t get through to him, I couldn’t get up... I don’t know what happened next,” claiming he went on to sexually assault her with a bottle.
“I could feel this pressure on my pubic bone,” she continued, saying that it “looked like” Depp was “punching” her, adding that there were “broken bottles, broken glass” all over the room.
Heard recalled thinking, "I hope it's not broken," in reference to the bottle she says was inside her. She said the actor "had the bottle inside of me and was shoving [it] inside of me over and over again".
Now, two months after the end of the high-profile trial, Newsweek has viewed recently unsealed pre-trial documents, in which Heard's legal team argued in a March filing that the Pirates of the Caribbean alum should disclose his alleged erectile dysfunction and submit a list of medications as evidence.
They went on to say that this is "relevant" as it would explain why he decided to use a bottle to rape Heard, an act that he vehemently denies.
According to Newsweek, her legal counsel wrote: "Though Mr. Depp would rather not disclose his erectile dysfunction condition, such condition is absolutely relevant to sexual violence, including Mr. Depp's anger and use of a bottle to rape Amber Heard.
"Mr. Depp's erectile dysfunction makes it more probable that Mr. Depp would be angry or agitated in encounters with Amber Heard, and that he would resort to a bottle."
The outlet also reported that Depp's legal team took issue with this suggestion and claimed Heard simply wanted a "circus, and clearly intends to take this trial down a number of unnecessarily salacious rabbit holes, including and especially with respect to Mr. Depp's medical history."
Heard had been involved in a defamation lawsuit that Depp, 58, brought against her. The Fantastic Beasts star argued that Heard defamed him because of a 2018 op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post, in which she spoke about her experience with domestic abuse.
She didn't name him in the op-ed, but he claims it falsely implies he abused her. The Pirates of the Caribbean star sued Heard for $50 million and the Aquaman star countersued him for $100 million.
Ultimately, when the the seven jurors returned their verdict, they found that Heard had defamed Depp on all three counts. They awarded him over $10 million in damages and awarded Heard $2 million as a result of her $100 million counterclaim.
She had filed the defamation countersuit against Depp over statements his attorney made about her, namely his referring to her abuse allegations as a hoax.
If you or anyone you know has suffered sexual assault, you can contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE.