The legal battle between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard rages on.
Amber has finally hit back against her ex’s huge defamation suit — and hit back hard with brand new allegations of violence and drug and alcohol abuse.
Related: Johnny Depp’s Suit Names ‘Elon’
Before we get into the Aquaman star’s harrowing personal account, a brief catch-up…
History
The couple were married just over a year until they filed for divorce in summer 2016, after which the he said/she said began immediately.
Amber first claimed her then-husband hit her in the face with a iPhone, even at the time releasing a photo of her injuries.
After a hefty $7 million divorce settlement, it seemed there was a legal ceasefire between the two. Amber agreed to dismiss her domestic violence complaint with prejudice, meaning she wouldn’t be able to file again. The exes released a joint statement saying:
“Our relationship was intensely passionate and at times volatile, but always bound by love. Neither party has made false accusations for financial gains. There was never an intent of physical or emotional harm. Amber wishes the best for Johnny in the future. Amber will be donating financial proceeds from the divorce to a charity.”
Then in December 2018 Amber published an op-ed in the Washington Post discussing how her abuse allegations had affected her life — she said she lost jobs as Hollywood scrambled to protect her abuser — without ever calling out Johnny by name.
That apparently was too much for the Pirates of the Caribbean star, who filed a $50 million defamation suit in March.
In a reversal of their joint statement, he is now calling her abuse allegations “an elaborate hoax.” The suit claimed:
“Ms Heard also knew that her elaborate hoax worked: as a result of her false allegations against Mr Depp, Ms Heard became a darling of the #MeToo movement, was the first actress named a Human Rights Champion of the United Nations Human Rights Office, was appointed ambassador on women’s rights at the American Civil Liberties Union, and was hired by L’Oreal Paris as its global spokesperson.”
It was also stated that Heard’s abuse allegations against him were “conclusively refuted by two separate responding police officers, a litany of neutral third-party witnesses, and 87 newly obtained surveillance camera videos.”
Not long after, Depp’s claims of her alleged abuse were revealed as well, along with a photograph of the actor’s bruised face.
That brings us to Amber’s response.
Amber’s Story
Amber filed a legal response to Johnny’s lawsuit this week.
While it is ostensibly meant to combat the claim her abuse allegations are a hoax — and get the entire defamation suit thrown out — the filing does so much more.
For the first time, the actress gives a full account of what it was allegedly like living with Johnny — and “the Monster” she claims he became.
She begins by pointing out some of the alleged red flags she should have taken heed of early on:
“About a year into our relationship, 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.
We called that version of Johnny, ‘the Monster’.”
Amber describes how after Mr. Hyde went away, Dr. Jekyll would return:
“Johnny often would not remember his delusional and violent conduct after he came out of his drunk or medicated states… Because I loved Johnny, I had believed his multiple promises that he could and would get better. I was wrong.”
She tells one story from 2014, when she was filming The Adderall Diaries with James Franco, and says Johnny got jealous.
[WARNING: From here on in there are multiple descriptions of physical abuse]:
“On the flight, Johnny ordered the flight attendants to give him an oxygen tank, and drank heavily. Johnny’s handlers told me that he was upset that I was filming a movie with a romantic scene with James Franco the day before. Soon, Johnny began to throw objects at me. Instead of reacting to his behavior, I simply moved seats. That didn’t stop him. He provocatively pushed a chair at me as I walked by, yelled at me, and taunted me by yelling out the name ‘James Franco.’”
She says that’s when it turned to actual violence:
“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.”
Amber says Johnny would come back after these events, with no memory but full of regret.
She even included in her legal filing a text message she says she received after such an incident:
“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. My illness somehow crept up and grabbed me… I must get better… Again, I am so sorry, so sorry… I love you and I feel so bad for letting you down.”
That was before their marriage.
After all that, Amber still married him in February 2015, though she had apparently made him promise to stay clean.
But the next month, in March, Amber says he went on three-day MDMA bender in Australia, causing a huge fight. She says:
“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.”
But, she says, it got worse the next morning:
“I went downstairs to find that Johnny was still awake, and that he had stayed up all night, having taken about eight MDMA pills. He was also drinking again. We got into a fight that Johnny made physical, and I barricaded myself in one of the rooms. That didn’t stop Johnny from busting through the door of the room I was in.
By nightfall, Johnny had hit me multiple times, shoved and pushed me to the ground, choked me, and spit in my face.”
She goes on to detail the alleged abuse she suffered that night:
“Johnny then handed me a liquor bottle that he was drinking from, and asked me, ‘What are you going to do?’ I threw the bottle on the floor. Johnny responded by starting to throw cans and unopened glass bottles at me…”
Amber says the fighting continued for hours:
“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.“
It only gets worse:
“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.”
Amber paints a portrait of being imprisoned in a room with “The Monster” for three days straight, unable to get free and in fear for her life:
“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.”
That is just… wow.
Amber continues:
“On the third day of Johnny staying awake without sleeping, I came downstairs to find numerous messages Johnny had written to me around the house, on the walls and on my clothes, written in a combination of oil paint and the blood from his broken and severed finger. Johnny also urinated all over the house.”
Eesh.
Her own injuries after the ordeal included “a busted lip, a swollen nose, and cuts all over my body.” She claims she still has the “scars on my arms and feet from this incident.”
In another incident from that same month, Amber admits to that what Johnny had claimed before, that she punched him in the face.
Only in her story, it’s self-defense… and defense of her sister Whitney, who was visiting at the time:
“He began to destroy personal property all over the house, including my belongings in my closet… 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. 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.”
Amber says she saw “The Monster” again in August 2015.
“While on the Eastern Oriental train, 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.“
And he had the gall to star in movie called Murder On The Orient Express after that??
Again in December of that year…
“Johnny picked another fight with me. He threw another decanter at me, knocked items around the room, and punched the wall. 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 says she tried to defuse the situation, to no avail:
“Hoping to avoid the violence, I tried to calm Johnny down, and then went upstairs to try to remove myself from the situation. Johnny followed me, hit me in the back of my head, grabbed me by my hair again, got in front of me on the steps, and then dragged me by my hair up the last few steps. At the top of stairs, Johnny shoved me twice, which made me fear I would fall. I told Johnny that he had broken my wrist in an attempt to get him to stop.”
He wouldn’t stop; and she was done playing placater:
“Johnny kept hitting me, and each time he knocked me down, I chose to react by simply standing up and looking him in the eye. Johnny responded by yelling, ‘Oh, you think you’re a f**king tough guy?'”
This, she says, sent Johnny over the edge:
“He reeled back and head-butted me in my face, bashing my nose, which immediately began bleeding, sending searing pain through my face. I instantly started tearing up, and I thought that I would have to go to the hospital. 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.”
And it allegedly only got worse when she told him she wanted a divorce:
“By the time Johnny had dragged me into the upstairs office, I told Johnny that I was leaving him, since I could not put up with his behavior any longer. 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**king will kill you — I’ll f**king kill you, you hear me?’ There were chunks of my hair everywhere and indentations in the carpet where I was dragged.”
Believe it or not, it even got worse from there…
“The fight continued onto a bed. Johnny got on top of me with his knee on my back and the other foot on the bed frame, while repeatedly punching me in my head, and he screamed — as loudly as I’ve ever heard him scream — ‘I f**king hate you’ over and over again. The bed frame splintered under the weight of the pressure of his boot. Johnny hit me with his closed fists, and I remember being unable to hear myself screaming because he had pushed my face into the mattress. I screamed as loudly as I could, hoping Johnny would realize he was severely hurting me. 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.“
Amber didn’t leave for another five months, when in May 2016 she filed for a domestic violence restraining order against him.
That was when she said he threw a phone at her face.
She describes that incident in this filing as well, saying:
“…he wound up like a baseball pitcher and threw the phone in my face, as hard as he could. I yelled, ‘You hit my face,’ and started to cry… Johnny grabbed my hair and started to slap, shake and yank me around the room while I continued to scream.”
That’s when, Amber says, a neighbor came in and stood between her and “The Monster.” So instead of hitting her he allegedly hit things.
“Johnny smashed various objects around the house with a wine bottle as he left… Johnny smashed more items in the hallway, spilled wine everywhere, and kicked a hole in a solid door.”
DailyMail.com actually got hold of photos Amber included in the court filing of the destruction from that day.
EXCLUSIVE PICTURES: Inside the wreckage of Amber Heard's $3MILLION penthouse closet https://t.co/RLQ9wxeOLt
— Daily Mail Celebrity (@DailyMailCeleb) April 12, 2019
She says that incident ended with Johnny chasing a makeup artist out of the apartment using a wine bottle as a weapon…
After everything, Amber says one of the most hurtful things was the narrative getting turned around on her:
“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 sought to use my public persona to speak out on an issue that was extremely meaningful to me and millions of other women and men every year.”
However, she says she still tried to protect Johnny:
“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.”
Now we guess she is done with all that? This legal filing was perhaps not meant to be public, but it is now.
It’s all out in the open.
The details of her story are all laid out.
What do YOU think of Amber’s story??
[Image via FayesVision/WENN.]
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