Yahoo Movies Amber Heard details horrific new abuse claims against Johnny Depp
Amber Heard alleges she was the victim of domestic abuse at the hands of Johnny Depp for years. In a new court filing, the Aquaman star recounts multiple instances where the actor allegedly became violent and threatened to kill her during booze and drug-filled rages. Yahoo Entertainment reached out to Depp’s publicist regarding the claims made in the document, but did not immediately receive a response.
The new, horrific allegations were not made public before due to the pair’s strict confidentiality agreement as part of their 2016 divorce settlement, but are relevant now because of Depp’s lawsuit against her. In February, the actor filed a $50 million (£38m) defamation lawsuit over an op-ed she wrote for the Washington Post about being a survivor of domestic abuse. Depp, 55, also called Heard’s abuse accusations against him “an elaborate hoax” to further her career.
In Heard’s filing, obtained by Page Six, she claims Depp became violent “about a year into our relationship.” (They began dating in 2012 after meeting on the set of The Rum Diary.)
“I began to witness Johnny abusing drugs and alcohol … On some occasions, when Johnny simultaneously used both illegal narcotics and prescription medications I have had to get him medical attention. Whenever he was using, I worried for both of us. He would become a totally different person, often delusional and violent,” Heard states, saying she and Depp referred to “that version of Johnny” as “The Monster.”
In May 2014, the 32-year-old actress alleges that Depp got physical with her on a private jet (in front of witnesses) because he was jealous of a love scene she filmed with James Franco one day prior. “Johnny began to throw objects at me,” she says, adding that Depp would taunt her by “yelling out the name James Franco.”
Read more: Heard reveals Depp ‘death threats’
“At some point, I stood up, and Johnny kicked me in the back, causing me to fall over. Johnny threw his boot at me while I was on the ground. Johnny continued to scream obscenities until he went into the plane bathroom and passed out locked in the bathroom for the remainder of the flight,” she claims. Depp supposedly apologised later in a text message, writing, “Once again, I find myself in a place of shame and regret. Of course, I am sorry. I really don’t know why or what happened. But I will never do it again.” Heard says Depp’s assistant also messaged her to apologise.
The pair wed in February 2015 and the abuse allegedly continued one-month later. Depp was in Australia filming Pirates of the Caribbean 5 when he supposedly went on a violent, three-day MDMA bender.
“Johnny told me that I had not explicitly forbidden him from taking ecstasy. The argument heated up, and Johnny pushed me, slapped me, and shoved me to the ground before I retreated to a locked bedroom,” she recalls. When Heard went downstairs the next morning she found that Depp had allegedly taken eight MDMA pills and was drinking again. “By nightfall, Johnny had hit me multiple times, shoved and pushed me to the ground, choked me, and spit in my face.”
She continues:
That night, Johnny shoved me into a ping pong table that collapsed underneath me. Johnny threw bottles through the window panels of a glass door, breaking two panes, and leaving glass everywhere. Johnny then grabbed me, gripping my body and nightgown. He tore the nightgown off, and at some point, I was naked and barefoot, covered in alcohol and glass.
Johnny grabbed me by my hair and choked me against the refrigerator in the kitchen. I tried to stand myself up but I was sliding around the glass-strewn floor and countertop. Johnny threw me away from him, and I tried to run away as Johnny continued to throw objects and alcohol at me.
In one of the most horrific and scariest moments of this three-day ordeal, Johnny grabbed me by the neck and collarbone and slammed me against the countertop. I struggled to stand up as he strangled me, but my arms and feet kept slipping and sliding on to the spilled alcohol and were dragged against the broken glass on the countertop and floor, which repeatedly slashed my feet and arms. Scared for my life, I told Johnny, ‘You are hurting me and cutting me.’ Johnny ignored me, continuing to hit me with the back of one closed hand, and slamming a hard plastic phone against a wall with his other until it was smashed into smithereens. While he was smashing the phone, Johnny severely injured his finger, cutting off the tip of it. . . . Once I was able to get away, I barricaded myself in an upstairs bedroom.
Depp’s hand injury was made public as it delayed production, although it was said to be from a “go-karting accident” at the time.
Heard details another incident that allegedly occurred in March 2015 where she admits to punching her then-husband in order to protect her sister, Whitney, whom she thought Depp would throw down the stairs.
“Johnny lunged to hit me, Whitney placed herself between us. Johnny turned his attention to Whitney, who was standing on the top of a flight of stairs, and moved on her,” she states. “Acting in defense of my sister, as I was scared for her physical safety, I punched Johnny in the face to draw his attention away from her. That was the only time I ever hit Johnny.”
Read more: Pirates reboot cancelled
Depp allegedly became violent again during an August 2015 trip to Thailand and Malaysia. According to Heard, “Johnny picked a fight with me, and started hitting and pushing me against a wall by grasping my throat and holding me there. I remember being afraid that Johnny might not know when to stop, and that he might kill me.”
Four months later, Heard says he picked another fight with her. “He slapped me hard, grabbed me by my hair, and dragged me from a stairwell to the office to the living room to the kitchen to the bedroom and then to the guest room. In the process, he pulled large chunks of hair and scalp out of my head,” she alleges.
“He reeled back and head-butted me in my face, bashing my nose, which immediately began bleeding, sending searing pain through my face,” she adds. “I told Johnny I wanted to leave him, and that I would call the police if he ever touched me again. When I began to walk away toward the guest apartment, he responded by pushing me, then grabbed me and pulled me from one room to the next, gripping me by my hair.”
Heard continues, claiming, “Johnny reacted by grabbing me by my throat, pushing me down to the ground, and punching me in the back of my head. He grabbed me by my hair, slapping me in the face, and screaming at me something like, ’I f***ing will kill you — I’ll f***ing kill you, you hear me?’ There were chunks of my hair everywhere and indentations in the carpet where I was dragged.”
The fight purportedly continued on a bed. “Johnny got on top of me with his knee on my back and the other foot on the bedframe, while repeatedly punching me in my head, and he screamed — as loudly as I’ve ever heard him scream— ‘I f***ing hate you’ over and over again. … For a while, I could not scream or breathe. I worried that Johnny was in a blacked-out state and unaware of the damage he was doing, and that he could actually kill me.”
The actress says she left Depp for good after the May 2016 incident, which has been the main domestic dispute reported about in the press.
“Many people called me a liar (without ever hearing my story),” Heard says. “People accused me of having abused Johnny. That simply is not true. I never attacked Johnny other than in self-defense (and in defense of my little sister). I have never physically abused anyone. I know what that does to people.”
She continues, “Instead, I have attempted to promote good in the world and to advocate an end to domestic violence. … I have spoken out about violence in public, but I have always avoided specifically referencing Johnny, or recounting his violence against me, not only because I wanted to move past that phase of my life but also because I was constrained by the terms of a strict confidentiality agreement that Johnny had insisted upon as part of our divorce settlement.”
Yahoo Entertainment reached out to Heard’s lawyer for comment, but did not immediately receive a response.
Reporting by Taryn Ryder, Yahoo Celebrity
