Johnny Depp, the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ actor, bristled under cross-examination at the $50 million defamation trial against ‘Aquaman‘ actor and ex-wife, Amber Heard.

Defence attorney Ben Rottenborn asked Depp about his alcohol intake in the final years of his relationship with his longtime partner and mother of his two now-grown children, Vanessa Paradis. Depp, who portrayed Captain Jack Sparrow, replied, “No, I wasn’t drinking that heavily …it’s what you define as heavily”. 

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Rottenborn kept at it, reading out testimony from Depp’s libel suit against British publication The Sun, which the actor lost, where he’d said “I was abusing alcohol for sure” towards the end of his relationship with Paradis. Depp jokingly asked the lawyer if he was there, before admitting that he had said that, seemingly contradicting himself in the process. 

The ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ actor also faced some more difficult revelations about his past drug and alcohol abuse during the cross-examination process. 

Depp had revealed earlier that Heard had an affair with actor James Franco in 2014, while the two were working on a movie. Heard’s lawyer brought up an argument the former couple had, while on a private jet from Boston to LA, where they fought over Franco. Rottenborn described Depp as being in a blacked-out state for parts of the flight. Contrary to Depp’s own testimony at the UK libel suit trial, the actor didn’t admit to being drunk on the flight, or the possibility of him blacking out from taking Oxycodone. 

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The 58-year-old star was also not very impressed when Heard’s lawyer challenged his assertion that Depp had been 18 months sober before he went to Australia in 2015 to film ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales’. 

After evidence mounted due to texts and images, Depp sought to clarify that his drug consumption wasn’t about enjoyment, but rather to deal with the aftermath of his dysfunctional childhood and the pressure of working in films. The actor said, “It’s not like I took the pills to get high, I took the pills to get normal”.