Kate James, Heard’s former personal assistant, alleged that the “Aquaman” star “appropriated” her story of being a “sexual violence survivor,” Variety reported. James worked for Heard from March 2012 to February 2015. She gave evidence at the London’s Royal Courts of Justice and testified on the seventh day of Johnny Depp’s libel trial against The Sun.
“I’m here for my own reasons … I’m a sexual violence survivor and that’s very, very serious to take that stance if you are not one and I am one. That’s the reason I’m here, because I take offense,” James was quoted by Variety, as saying.
“Can you explain why you take exception [to Ms. Heard’s allegations against Depp]?” Depp’s lawyer David Sherborne asked her. “Because Ms. Heard referred to a conversation we had about me being violently raped at machete point in Brazil and she used it as her own story,” James replied.
“She referred directly to a violent rape that occurred to me 26 years ago and she twisted it into her own story and she used it for her own use.” James also claimed that Heard would send her a barrage of drunk text messages between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. on a regular basis. She described the texts as “abusive.”
However, Sherborne pointed out that Heard provided them with the text messages and there were only a few exchanges between the actress and her former PA. “I was using a phone that was logged into her [Heard’s] iCloud account,” James explained.
“When she terminated my employment, she deleted all of the texts from the cloud — only texts that were abusive. She saved the ones that weren’t.” Defense lawyer Sasha Wass asked James if she had been “influenced by Mr. Depp and his associates who have encouraged you to give this vicious evidence against her [Heard].”
“Absolutely not,” James responded. Prior to the trial, James released a statement about Heard. In her deposition, she recalled how Heard would refer to Depp as “old man.” James didn’t know who Heard was dating at the time. She claimed that the actress would “speak in disparaging terms about him.” Later on, she learned that Heard was referring to Depp.
James also said that Heard was obsessed with her newfound fame when she was still dating Depp and she didn’t want the “Pirates of the Caribbean” actor to know about it. “She didn’t want Johnny to know how obsessed she was with her new found increasing fame thanks to her association with him,” James said.