Amber Heard detailed the multiple instances of abuse she allegedly endured while married to Johnny Depp in a court filing that attempted to dismiss Depp’s $50 million defamation lawsuit against the actress.
“Johnny often would not remember his delusional and violent conduct after he came out of his drunk or medicated states,” Heard said in the filing (via Variety), noting incidents where she claimed Depp hit and choked her. “Because I loved Johnny, I had believed his multiple promises that he could and would get better. I was wrong.”
Heard also claimed that Depp “would become a totally different person, often delusional and violent. We called that version of Johnny, ‘the Monster.'”
Depp and Heard divorced in August 2016. Two years later, in a December 2018 op-ed for the Washington Post, Heard described her own experience as the victim of domestic abuse. While Depp was not mentioned in the op-ed, the actor’s lawyers filed a $50 million defamation suit against the actress. “The op-ed depended on the central premise that Ms. Heard was a domestic abuse victim and that Mr. Depp perpetrated domestic violence against her,” the lawsuit stated.
Depp’s lawyers added that Heard’s “implication that Mr. Depp is a domestic abuser is categorically and demonstrably false.”
However, in the court filing Thursday that sought to dismiss the defamation lawsuit, Heard shared numerous incidents where she claimed Depp lashed out violently against her, including a “horrific ordeal” when the couple visited Australia in March 2015; Heard claimed Depp, who had been sober at the time, began drinking and taking ecstasy excessively.
“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,” Heard wrote.
“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,” she added. “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.”
Heard added, “To this day, I still have scars on my arms and feet from this incident.”
In another alleged incident, during a flight to Los Angeles in May 2014, Depp “began to throw objects at me” due to a romantic scene that Heard had filmed with James Franco. “Instead of reacting to his behavior, I simply moved seats,” she said. “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.’”
Heard said in December 2015, Depp “threw another decanter at me, knocked items around the room, and punched a wall” and “slapped me hard, grabbed me by my hair and dragged me from a stairwell to the office to the living to the kitchen to the bedroom and then to the guest room.”
The final incident came in May 2016 and, according to Heard, resulted in the bruised eye the actress had when she filed a restraining order against the actor a week later. “[Depp] wound up like a baseball pitcher and threw the phone in my face, as hard as he could,” Heard said of the incident where she “resolved to leave Johnny for good.”
Heard’s attorney Eric George said in a statement, “Johnny Depp physically and verbally abused Amber Heard. Since their divorce, Mr. Depp has continued to publically harass Ms. Heard, and attempted to gaslight the world by denying his abuse. It is long past time for Mr. Depp’s despicable conduct to end.”
In a statement to Rolling Stone, Depp’s lawyer Adam Waldman said, “A hoax confronted with the reality of evidence requires new lies to sustain itself. Yesterday’s filing, made by a woman with a prior arrest and incarceration for domestic abuse, presented Amber Heard’s new lies. Which part of 87 surveillance videos, 19 (and growing) sworn eyewitness statements, audio tapes, time and date stamped photographs, police depositions and her own sworn testimony does Amber Heard and her PR team think the public is too stupid to comprehend?”
Waldman added, “Ms. Heard has a new problem besides defamation, perjury and defrauding the Court with a fake temporary restraining order claim: We are now interviewing other women who have come forward claiming they are victims of horrific acts of violence and other abuse at the hands of Amber Heard, in addition to Johnny Depp and Tasya van Ree, the latter of whom Ms. Heard was previously arrested and incarcerated for assaulting. We have now issued subpoenas to Amber Heard, her hoax-assisting friends, Elon Musk and other witnesses to explain the avalanche of video, audio, photographic and testimonial evidence with which we intend to confront them.”
