BEST FOR THE BEST? Johnny Depp put up his legal team, trial witnesses at Ritz-Carlton during trial
Johnny Depp reportedly spent his days at the 5-star hotel, Ritz-Carlton, while fighting a defamation case against his former wife, Amber Heard, in a Virginia court. Not just the 58-year-old actor, his legal team as well as witnesses also enjoyed a stay there as the blockbuster trial continued for seven weeks before the jurors began deliberations in the case.
Depp has sued the 36-year-old actress for $50 million after she wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post in 2018, claiming herself to be a domestic violence survivor. In the essay, Heard had said, “I didn’t see myself as a victim. Then two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out.” But the ‘Aquaman’ actress countersued the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ star for $100 million, alleging he and his lawyers defamed her by calling her abuse claims fake.
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According to reports, the closing arguments in the trial were made on May 27, after which, the case was sent to jury members on Friday, May 27. The jurors deliberated for a few hours before resuming the work on Tuesday, May 31. Depp has not revealed yet if he will be present in court when a judgment into the case will come out as on weekend, he was seen performing at concerts in the UK with his guitarist friend Jeff Beck at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
However, when the ‘Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them’ star was in the US, he was reportedly camped out at a suite in Ritz-Carlton, in McLean, Virginia, which is a 15-minute walk away from the court. Radaronline.com reported that the lawyers fighting for Depp were allocated penthouses at the luxurious property, mostly used as “war rooms”.
Besides, the father-of-two’s go to place for food in Virginia was The Palm, a fine-dining steakhouse, which is near to the place he stayed. It has been said that the actor and his troop often spent “$1,000 a night on fine wines and have opted for the $35 chicken Parmigiana entrée as their default dish”.
The steakhouse’s walls include caricatures of its famous visitors and last week, it also added Depp’s face, Fox News reported. The report continued that the actor's visage was placed next to Nicolas Cage as it added: "Depp signed the portrait of himself, in which he sports a thin mustache, a goatee and shaggy hair. The venue already had a ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ banner above an entrance near Depp's secreted dining area – but that has been there for years.”
Meanwhile, not much is known about Heard’s whereabouts as jury members are trying to reach a conclusion in the case. Earlier, when the trial started in April, an insider close to the actress and her team had said, “He threatened to ruin her career and inflict global humiliation upon her, and after losing in the UK, this is his last gasp attempt. A jury verdict against Johnny will send a message to the millions of women out there who suffer from intimate partner violence every single day, that they can move safely on with their lives. And it will allow Amber to move on as well.”