Johnny Depp's lawyers thought he would lose control on the stand during his trial against Amber Heard

The attorney for Johnny Depp feared he could lose his temper in the Fairfax County defamation case in 2022, during which it was alleged that he was physically abusive to his ex-wife, Amber Heard.

Depp took his estranged partner to court following an op-ed she wrote about domestic abuse, before he eventually won the case and was ordered to receive $10 million dollars in compensatory damages, later amended to one million dollars.

However, Benjamin Chew, who worked on behalf of the 61-year-old, feared that he could succumb to an old legal trick designed to bait someone accused of abuse into losing their temper.

"Johnny's use of humor really undermined whatever serious point Amber's counsel was trying to make," Chew told Interrogation Raw: Celebrity Under Oath. "We wanted to humanize Johnny before the jury.

"So they could understand why hitting the woman he loved was something that he's just not capable of. But the one thing that we're concerned about is whether he might lose his temper.

"The other side is gonna do everything possible to get Johnny to show anger. One of the things that lawyers try to do on cross-examination is to maintain control of the witness. That's something that Johnny simply did not allow [Heard's attorney Ben Rottenborn] to do."

Depp's joy at winning

Depp said that the jury gave him his life back after he won the case, after previously being dropped from roles such as Gellert Grindelwald in the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them trilogy.

And Chew recalled how delighted he was to have won the case, which experts initially tipped him to have a small chance of winning within the United States, after his team successfully proved he didn't use sexual violence against her.

"He was elated," Chew added of Depp. "And he sounded as if the weight of the world was off of his shoulders. I mean, he sounded like a kid. He was thrilled."

Heard has since relocated to Spain and described herself as "heartbroken" at the verdict after the evidence she believed she had accumulated, adding it was a damaging blow to the seriousness of violence against women in society.