Amber Heard Says She Met Elon Musk at Met Gala in 2016 After Being 'Stood Up' by Johnny Depp
Pascal Le Segretain/Getty; Neilson Barnard/Getty; From left: Elon Musk, Amber Heard, Johnny Depp
Amber Heard is alleging that then-husband Johnny Depp "stood [her] up" at the 2016 Met Gala — the same night she got acquainted with Elon Musk.
As proceedings resumed Monday in the defamation trial between Depp and Heard in Fairfax, Virginia, the 36-year-old actress said Depp, 58, "effectively stood me up on the red carpet" in May 2016, after their fight during her 30th birthday party the previous month.
"Johnny missed a fitting, because it was happening around the date of my birthday party in Los Angeles, but we were planning on going together as Ralph Lauren's guests," said Heard.
She alleged that she "didn't know" Depp wasn't going to show up to the Met Gala, as his team would not communicate with her, Heard said.
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"So I ended up going by myself," said the Aquaman 2 actress from her place on the stand. "I sat next to an empty place setting for Johnny that they cleared as soon as we realized he effectively stood me up on the red carpet."
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Jamie McCarthy/FilmMagic Amber Heard at the 2016 Met Gala
Heard went on to say that she first came in contact with Musk, 50, on the red carpet.
"I didn't recognize [Elon] until we started talking and he reminded me we had met once before," she said, adding that the Tesla and SpaceX CEO "was with his mother," Maye Musk, at the event.
"He seemed like a real gentleman," Heard continued of Musk. "He was really nice. He sat at a nearby table and we got to speaking that night and eventually became friends."
A rep for Musk previously said he and Heard, who'd broken up by August 2017, "didn't start seeing each other until May 2016, and even then it was infrequent. Their relationship didn't become romantic until some time later."
Over a year after the breakup, Heard told The Hollywood Reporter in December 2018, "Elon and I had a beautiful relationship, and we have a beautiful friendship now, one that was based on our core values. Intellectual curiosity, ideas and conversation, a shared love for science. We just bonded on a lot of things that speak to who I am on the inside. I have so much respect for him."
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Heard and Depp met while making the 2011 film The Rum Diary and later wed in 2015. They broke up in May 2016, when Heard 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.
Depp is suing Heard for defamation over a 2018 op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post about surviving domestic violence, though she never mentioned Depp by name in the article. The Pirates of the Caribbean actor originally filed the $50 million lawsuit in March 2019.
Depp, who has said multiple times under oath that he has never struck Heard or any woman, has testified that his "goal is the truth" as he seeks to clear his name in the trial, which is being televised live via various outlets.
When Heard took the stand, she told the jury, "I struggle to find the words to describe how painful this is. This is horrible for me to sit here for weeks and relive everything."
Back in November 2020, Depp lost his highly publicized U.K. libel lawsuit case against British tabloid The Sun for calling him a "wife-beater." The court upheld the outlet's claims as being "substantially true" and Heard testified to back up the claims. In March 2021, his attempt to overturn the decision was overruled.
