Latest news with #HollywoodVampires
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
How Amber Heard became a #MeToo poster girl until Johnny Depp turned the tables by convincing a jury his violent ex was the one betraying women
Hollywood Vampires is the sensational new book that chronicles Johnny Depp and Amber Heard 's toxic union. Today, in the final part of our gripping series, we chart the bitter unravelling of their marriage – and how Amber's transformation into a #MeToo icon would set the stage for one of the most explosive celebrity trials of the decade. On Monday May 23, 2016, three days after Johnny Depp's mother died, Amber Heard quietly filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. After just 15 months, their turbulent marriage was at an end. The next day, her lawyer sent to his lawyer what would become known among Johnny's friends as 'the extortion letter'. Amber stated that Johnny had been violent toward her three times. 'Although Amber is afraid of Johnny, she strongly insists that we do everything possible to keep this matter out of the media spotlight,' the letter read, explaining that this was why she had not yet sought a restraining order. It listed Amber's immediate requests: appropriate temporary alimony (eventually requested at $50,000 a month); exclusive use and possession of a black Range Rover owned by Johnny; exclusive use and possession of three of his five downtown LA penthouses where she and several of her friends were living (rent-free); and a contribution to Amber's legal fees in the amount of $100,000, plus $25,000 for 'forensic accounting costs', to be paid by Friday. While the letter was on its way, Amber was frantically trying to reach Johnny, who was in New York, begging him to call her, texting him 'please' over and over again, and 'emergency' and 'I'm dying'. That night, having not made contact, Amber sent a further text. 'We can take as long or quick as we want. And do this or undo this as we see fit. You and I have the control. And love each other.' Today, in the final part of our gripping series, we chart the bitter unravelling of their marriage – and how Amber's transformation into a #MeToo icon would set the stage for one of the most explosive celebrity trials of the decade She ended with: 'I'm sorry if I've hurt you. I have nothing but love for you.' She was suggesting she could 'undo' the legal wheels she'd set in motion. But while she was declaring love for Johnny, Amber was also collecting evidence. On Wednesday, Johnny filed his response, rejecting all of Amber's requests for spousal support. Within hours, countless media outlets, from Page Six to Vanity Fair and the BBC, were breaking the news of the divorce. On May 27, Amber filed for a temporary restraining order. She presented the court with multiple photos documenting injuries to her cheek and eye area from a fight at her apartment which had ended with the police being called. In a sworn declaration she said: 'During the entirety of our relationship, Johnny has been verbally and physically abusive to me… which has included angry, hostile, humiliating and threatening assaults to me whenever I questioned his authority or disagreed with him.' She added that she was scared: 'As Johnny's paranoia, delusions and aggression increased throughout our relationship so has my awareness of his continued substance abuse. 'Because of this, I am extremely afraid of Johnny and for my safety. I am petrified he will return at any moment to the Broadway residence, to which he has full access to despite my repeated pleas to his security team to prevent otherwise and to protect me.' Later that day, TMZ, a celebrity news website, splashed with the headline: 'Amber Heard Claims Domestic Violence, Gets Restraining Order Against Johnny Depp.' Her allegations of domestic violence were now out in the world. A few days later, People magazine hit the newsstands with an explosive cover story featuring exclusive photos of Amber's injuries. 'Inside Their Toxic Marriage,' the headline read. The cover showed a pale and forlorn Amber with discolouration under her eyes and a lesion on her lower lip. The photo was credited to a friend of Amber's and dated from December 2015. Bruce Witkin, who was on tour in Denmark with Johnny and their band, the Hollywood Vampires, at the time, remembered the moment they saw the story. 'We're on the road. You know, he was freaked out. And I'm like, 'What is this?'' Bruce thought it looked suspicious. 'Do I think they both hit each other? Yeah. But do I think it was to the extent that she said? Absolutely not.' Johnny later said he 'felt ill' when the People story dropped. 'I felt sick in the sense there was no truth to it. There was no truth in it whatsoever... Then you notice people looking at you differently. And then you notice calls stop coming from agents and producers.' He'd finish a show and then go to the back of the tour bus: 'I just sat in the back of the bus and cried.' The following week, on June 7, 2016, TMZ published another shocking story – this time about Amber and the girlfriend she had been seeing when she first met Johnny, Tasya van Ree. 'Amber Heard Arrested for Domestic Violence Against Girlfriend,' the headline read. In 2009, the same year she met Johnny, a police officer had seen Amber and Tasya arguing, then Amber had lunged at Tasya's neck as if she was going to choke her. No charges ensued but the case remained on file for two years. It had never before been made public. Despite having got a restraining order against him, Amber kept pleading with Johnny for a meeting. Eventually, against the advice of his friends, he agreed. His bodyguard, Malcolm, believed he was being 'set up'. Bruce Witkin insisted on sitting nearby until the early hours of the morning, ready to intervene if things got too heated. She secretly recorded their conversation on her phone. At one point, she told Johnny she just wanted to touch him. 'After all the s*** you f***ing accused me of? You wanna touch me? You're f***ing nuts,' he said. Amber cried and told Johnny she didn't want things to end badly. She tried to take his sunglasses off to see his eyes. 'Don't take my f***ing glasses off,' he spat. 'You will not see my eyes again.' There were revealing moments in the recording that demonstrated a more honest side to their relationship: that they emotionally tortured one another, and that Amber had hit Johnny more than once. The following week, on June 7, 2016, TMZ published another shocking story – this time about Amber and the girlfriend she had been seeing when she first met Johnny, Tasya van Ree Johnny reminded her why he left her on her 30th birthday, because she 'haymakered him' and 'came around the bed and was punching' him. Later, Amber would say she didn't deny this in the moment because she was 'not having that conversation with Johnny' and just wanted to get out of the room. 'Booze does not make me crazy. Drugs do not make me crazy,' Johnny told her. 'Here's the deal. You make me crazy.' At one point, he pulled out a knife and threatened to cut himself. It was the turquoise-handled knife that Amber had given him as a birthday gift. 'Want to cut me somewhere?' Johnny asked Amber. 'Please do not cut yourself,' she pleaded, begging him to 'put the knife down.' Enough dirty linen had been aired: three months later, after much wrangling, the warring parties reached agreement. The dissolution of their brief marriage would result in three phonebook-sized volumes of family law records. Amber was awarded $7million (£5.2million). She said she would donate the entire amount to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Children's Hospital Los Angeles, a promise she did not fulfil. Johnny retained all of his properties. Amber would keep their dogs, Pistol and Boo, and the horse, Arrow, that he had given her. Neither would receive spousal support. A confidentiality agreement barred them from ever discussing the details of the divorce publicly. They released a joint statement: 'Our relationship was intensely passionate and at times volatile, but always bound by love. 'Neither party has made false accusations for financial gain. There was never any intent of physical or emotional harm.' And that should have been that. But the image of Amber's bruised face remained in the public memory. When #MeToo took off, she became an icon for women sickened by the way actresses had been mistreated in Hollywood. Whether you believed #MeToo was a new dawn for feminism or a new satanic panic, Amber was poised for the moment. Her public persona transformed from silenced, persecuted victim to outspoken survivor and advocate. As a Hollywood activist, Amber's celebrity grew to new heights. In May 2018, she was selected to be a global ambassador at L'Oreal, a role that A-list actresses Dame Helen Mirren, Julianne Moore, and Eva Longoria also held, and which involved, in Amber's words, being 'a spokesperson for this dynamic, world-loved beauty brand that's been telling women 'we're worth it' since before I was born.' The ACLU (slated to receive $3.5million – £2.6million – of her divorce settlement) appointed her an ambassador of women's rights, with a focus on gender-based violence. Amber was a star guest at the 2018 'Incredible Women' gala in Hollywood, which celebrated the one-year anniversary of #MeToo and Time's Up. She took to the stage in a red velvet tuxedo jacket and black cigarette pants to read aloud an open letter she had written entitled 'To My Silent Sisters'. The letter didn't name Johnny, but it discussed the stigma of coming forward as a victim of domestic violence in Hollywood. 'No matter how terrible or terrifying surviving trauma may be,' she read, 'the truth is, it can pale in comparison to what happens after'. In private, Amber had been vocal about the fact that she believed her career and reputation had suffered because she went public as the abuse victim of an ultra-famous and beloved star. Though the headwinds of #MeToo were against him, Johnny wasn't exiled – yet. His reputation had taken a hit, but JK Rowling was still in his corner (he was playing Gellert Grindelwald in the Harry Potter spin-off, Fantastic Beasts), he was still working on new films and his nearly $22.5million (£16.7million) pay cheque for Pirates Of The Caribbean 6 was on the horizon. Then, on April 27, 2018, the tabloid newspaper The Sun printed a story with the headline 'Gone Potty: How can JK Rowling be 'genuinely happy' casting wife beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts Film?' The article challenged JK Rowling on her decision to keep Johnny in the cast, and The Sun ran the same photo of Amber's bruised face that had appeared on TMZ. Something shifted for Johnny with this article. Seeing his name in print, attached to the word 'wife beater', in a major news publication was a bridge too far. He sued for libel. In the months that followed, Johnny was photographed looking unrecognisable. Headlines described him as 'gaunt', 'pale' and 'shockingly thin'. He took to wearing a black fitted cap that said 'FUGLY' in large block letters across the front. In November 2018, the ACLU approached Amber to write an article asserting that survivors of gender-based violence had been made less safe under the first Trump administration. It would debut Amber's new role with the ACLU and conveniently coincide with the US release of her new movie, Aquaman. The film, which had already been released in the UK, was shaping up to be a huge hit at the box office. The ACLU suggested the piece should 'interweave her own personal story, saying how painful it is as a survivor to witness these setbacks' and helped by ghost-writing it for her. The piece was published by the Washington Post on December 18, 2018 under the headline: 'Amber Heard: I spoke up against sexual violence and faced our culture's wrath. That has to change.' Again, she did not mention Johnny's name, but the media was quick to fill in the blanks. 'Amber claims accusing Johnny Depp of domestic abuse lost her jobs,' ran a headline in Elle magazine, while People magazine ran with: 'Amber Heard says she was dropped from jobs after making Johnny Depp allegations.' The blowback came swiftly for Johnny. Two days after the article was published, he was dropped from the forthcoming instalment of Pirates Of The Caribbean. In January 2019, Amber graced the cover of Glamour's final print issue, wearing a low-cut, baby-blue satin suit and leaning against a shiny red convertible. The headline: 'Amber Heard: Silence Is Complacency.' Two months later, she was served with papers. Johnny was suing her for $50million (£37million) for defaming him in the Washington Post. Johnny's lawsuit categorically denied that he ever abused Amber, claiming that her allegations were part of an 'elaborate hoax to generate positive publicity.' He stated that her story had been 'refuted' by two police officers (who had seen no injury to Amber the night they were called to her apartment), multiple third-party witnesses, and 87 surveillance camera tapes. But the lawsuit was also a plot twist in the wider #MeToo movement: Johnny was turning the tables on his accuser. 'Ms Heard is not a victim of domestic abuse; she is a perpetrator,' he claimed. 'She hit, punched and kicked me. She also repeatedly and frequently threw objects into my body and head, including heavy bottles, soda cans, burning candles, television remote controls and paint thinner cans, which severely injured me.' He added that she committed these acts 'while mixing prescription amphetamines and non-prescription drugs with alcohol.' Here was a powerful male celebrity, who had been publicly accused of domestic violence, not only asserting that the allegations were false, but claiming he was the true victim, and that his much younger wife, a #MeToo advocate, was a systematic abuser. 'I have denied Ms Heard's allegations vehemently since she first made them in May 2016 when she walked into court to obtain a temporary restraining order with painted-on bruises that witnesses and surveillance footage show she did not possess each day of the preceding week,' his filing continued. 'I will continue to deny them for the rest of my life.' The following month, Amber hit back: she was now claiming 13 incidents of domestic violence, described in painstaking detail over 14 pages. Her version of what happened behind closed doors was distressing and graphic. Amber described bloody gashes, being dragged through broken glass, bruised and swollen noses, black eyes, hair pulled from her scalp, being held against the wall by her neck, being suffocated on their marital bed, clothes torn clean off her body, repeated punches to her head, and being dragged up sets of stairs by her hair. Johnny's lawyer called the document listing the incidents a 'public firebomb'. Unless a settlement could be reached, Amber and Johnny would be headed to court in Virginia. But first, they would square off at the Royal Courts of Justice in London for Johnny's defamation case against The Sun. Amber had a trove of pictures, videos, audio recordings and witnesses to support her claims of abuse before the judge. But Johnny's lawyers had unearthed new evidence of their own. In January 2020, two months before the trial was due to begin, Johnny's old friend and colleague Stephen Deuters was on his work computer when a file popped up labelled 'AVM' (for 'Amber voice messages'). He opened the folder and scrolled through the audio recordings, all more than five years old, and totalling more than six hours. 'Holy s***!' he said. He knew he'd found gold. Hours of recordings (consensually recorded on Amber's phone) capturing their bitter fights were now in Team Depp's possession. A Daily Mail headline dropped: 'Exclusive: 'I can't promise I won't get physical again, I get so mad I lose it.' Listen as Amber Heard admits to 'hitting' ex-husband Johnny Depp and pelting him with pots, pans and vases in explosive audio confession.' #JusticeForJohnnyDepp started trending across Twitter and TikTok, and would continue to grow through the forthcoming trials. Amber's Instagram comments, meanwhile, were mobbed by angry Johnny supporters. The internet was starting to take Johnny's side, with Amber becoming the poster child of #MeToo's overreach. More lurid evidence about the couple's life together surfaced in court – including the accusation that Amber had once defecated in their bed (she insisted it was their dogs) – but Johnny lost his case in London. His lawyers accidentally disclosed some appalling texts he had sent to actor Paul Bettany ('Let's burn Amber', 'Let's drown her before we burn her!!! I will f*** her burnt corpse afterward to make sure she is dead'). The judge found Johnny guilty of 12 of the 14 violent incidents to which Amber had testified: therefore The Sun had not libelled him when it called him a 'wife beater'. In November 2020, Johnny began his pre-trial deposition for Depp vs Heard in front of Amber's lawyer, who asked him if he would have felt vindicated if the UK ruling had come down in his favour. Johnny replied that it didn't matter. He lost when Amber made the accusations, the damage was done. 'My continuing to demand the truth is not for me to win,' he explained, 'but it's for the people out there, the women, the victims of this type of thing who are not believed, who are being lied to by your client pretending to be some new messiah of the women's movement. She is a fraud.' The trial would not get under way for a year: originally scheduled to begin in May 2021, it was delayed due to the Covid pandemic. While he and Amber waited in limbo, they both went through big life changes. In April 2021, Amber's daughter Oonagh was born by surrogate. She posted branded content for L'Oreal on Instagram, along with videos chronicling her intensive diet and exercise regimen for Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom, which she'd film over four months in the latter half of 2021. Johnny, meanwhile, unveiled a new vocation as an artist. In January 2022, his artwork entered the world in the form of a digital collection of Warhol-like portraits, entitled Never Fear Truth. As anticipation mounted ahead of the trial, legal experts opined that the odds weren't in Johnny's favour. This time around, he was suing Amber directly, not a tabloid. In order to prove that Amber knowingly made defamatory statements about him, he had to prove a negative – that he never committed domestic violence. It would be a much tougher legal challenge than in the UK, where defamation law should have favoured his case, and yet he'd still lost. Celebrity trials have always captured the public's imagination, playing out like soap operas in the media – and this one was no different, being fully televised. Scores of 'Deppheads' turned the suburban Fairfax County Circuit Courthouse into a freaky festival: there was a pair of stinky alpacas wearing rainbow pom-pom necklaces and countless Jack Sparrow impersonators. Someone even managed to get a truck converted to look like a pirate ship into the courthouse grounds. The sheriff's office tracked the IDs of every spectator who waited in line to get a wristband for entry to the courtroom; they logged driving licences from 41 different states and passports from 15 different countries. During the trial, Johnny gained 9.56million new followers on Instagram, 100 times more than Amber, who gained 91,511. By now, 13 years had passed since Johnny and Amber had met, when she was 23 and he 46, and five years since #MeToo had sparked a global reckoning. But the world had changed since the zealous, hardline early days of the #MeToo movement. The refrains of 'Believe Women' were no longer at a fever pitch. Now almost everyone knew someone who'd been cancelled or de-platformed. To some, distinctions between inappropriate comments, harassment and assault no longer seemed clear or even relevant. To others, frustrations with 'cancel culture', the erosion of due process and #MeToo's perceived excesses simmered. People seemed more willing to acknowledge the grey areas: a relationship simply not working out isn't the same as an abusive one. This time Johnny won his case. The jury found unanimously that he had proved defamation and that Amber had defamed him with 'actual malice'. They awarded him $10million (£7.5million) in compensatory damages and $5million (£3.7million) in punitive damages. The punitive damages would later be reduced to $350,000 (£261,000) due to a limit imposed by Virginia state law. Ruling on Amber's defamation counterclaim for $100million (£74.5million), the jury found just one statement, made by Adam Waldman, Johnny's lawyer, to be defamatory and false and made with 'actual malice'. She was awarded $2million (£1.49million) in compensatory damages from Johnny but no punitive damages. Before, during and after the trial, it was clear that Depp vs Heard had become a vehicle for myriad divergent political and personal causes. The world wanted a black-and-white story: villain vs hero, abuser vs victim, liar vs truth-teller. It had never been that simple. © Kelly Loudenberg and Makiko Wholey, 2025
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
The rented mansion was splattered with blood and strewn with broken glass. Johnny Depp's severed fingertip was wrapped in a paper towel... 'Safe to say we've lost our deposit!' his butler sighed
Adapted from Hollywood Vampires – a sensational new book, which charts, in unsparing detail, the car-crash marriage between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard – yesterday's extract revealed the drug-taking mayhem that characterised their relationship from the start. And, as we reveal today, it wasn't long before their rage-fuelled arguments descended into violence... While Amber and Johnny were still celebrating their wedding in the Bahamas, Johnny's butler Ben King pulled into the palatial car port at Diamond Head, a riverfront mega-mansion on the Gold Coast of Australia, just south of Brisbane. Palm trees swayed in the breeze as he opened the grandiose oak door and scoped out the ten bedrooms and bathrooms. Soon, the happy couple – whose wedding photos were already splashed across the pages of People magazine – would arrive. Diamond Head's owner, Mick Doohan, an Aussie motorcycling champion, had previously rented his place to Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Pink. Now the mansion would be Johnny and Amber's home for several months while Johnny filmed the fifth instalment of the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise, Dead Men Tell No Tales. Ben dusted off the pool table and checked the home cinema and gym. He was surrounded by stacks of suitcases, one filled entirely with candles. He unpacked Johnny's clothes, an assortment of tattered, patched and stained bohemian garb. As far as British butlers went, Ben was the creme de la creme. He had worked at Buckingham Palace and for clients including Andrew Lloyd Webber and Nelson Mandela. Also in Australia was Johnny's assistant Nathan Holmes and other members of Johnny's staff, including his chief of security, Jerry Judge, and bodyguard, Malcolm Connolly. The staff would live off-site, but two local security guards never left the grounds, circling the property like clockwork. Nathan got the Apple TV set up with YouTube and Netflix, Johnny's favourites. He made some bedside flower arrangements, rented go-karts for the race track outside and found an art teacher for Amber, who wanted to take painting classes. They were soon joined by Russell Borrill, Johnny's chef, fresh from the chaos on Johnny's private island, Little Hall's Pond Cay. Johnny arrived first and began filming in mid-February. Amber was in London for a couple of weeks, working on The Danish Girl. Johnny texted Nathan looking for drugs. 'Any ONE of ANY of you guys start to lecture me... I just do not want to hear it... No stupid bulls***.' A few days later he texted again. 'May I be ecstatic again?' he asked, referring to ecstasy. Later, he pleaded, 'NEED more whitey stuff ASAP brotherman... and the e-business!!! Please I'm in a bad bad shape. Say NOTHING to NOBODY!!!!' On the Pirates set, things were off to a rocky start. Ten days into filming, the president of Disney called Johnny's agent to say that on one day Johnny had been four to six hours late to set and 300 extras sat for hours waiting. The following day, Johnny was late again, this time by eight hours. As soon as Amber arrived, on March 3, 2015, she and Johnny began to fight. According to Johnny, Amber was 'irate' and 'possessed' over discussions of a postnuptial agreement following their failure to execute a prenup before marrying. He said Amber believed he was trying to 'trick her' into receiving nothing. 'All I could do was try to calm her down and say that I was not out to screw her over or put her in a position that was uncomfortable,' Johnny said later. Amber would say she was the one who spearheaded the postnuptial agreement conversation. On the evening of Friday, March 6, Russell made sure the house was stocked with groceries as Johnny and Amber had the weekend off. He put the finishing touches on a selection of food on a coffee table in front of the TV. Johnny and Amber were snuggled under a blanket as Russell said goodbye for the weekend. He reminded them that he'd prepared meals for the weekend that only needed to be reheated. On Sunday, Malcolm got a call from Jerry Judge, Johnny's head of security, who was out scouting locations. 'Something's happened with the boss, man,' Jerry said. 'You need to extract him. Just extract him, take him out of there.' Malcolm raced with Johnny's driver to Diamond Head. What happened there was to become one of the most contentious episodes in the couple's marriage – one which loomed large in their later court battles in the UK and the US, in which both accused the other of domestic violence. When Malcolm walked in the door, Amber was wearing a cardigan and a shiny slip, screaming at Johnny. Johnny was screaming back at Amber, clutching one of his fingers. 'She cut my finger clean off...' Johnny said. 'She slapped me with a vodka bottle.' He leaned over to Malcolm showing him the injured finger. Johnny and Amber continued to argue as Malcolm tried to pull Johnny away and into the car outside. 'Johnny, that's all you do. You f*** off. You f*** off with your guys. You're a f***ing coward, you big man,' Amber shouted. Johnny kept running back up the stairs to continue the fight, begging Malcolm, 'Let me stay for a few more minutes.' 'Johnny, LET'S GO!' Malcolm demanded, this time with more force. He pulled him back outside, locked him into the back seat of the car, jumped in and told the driver to speed away. Fast. With Johnny in the back seat wailing, Malcolm and the driver raced back to Malcolm's apartment in Broadbeach. As Malcolm washed Johnny's bloody hand, he could see the bone sticking out of his finger. There was dirt and paint in the wound too. He sat Johnny down on his bed and phoned Nurse Debbie and David Kipper, Johnny's addiction specialist, who had been flown out to Australia to be on call. 'Get here fast,' he said. They took one look at Johnny's hand and drove him to hospital. In A&E, Johnny, still wearing his sunglasses, lay on a stretcher, his bloody finger wrapped in a green napkin laid on top of a large fabric pad. Malcolm stood next to Johnny, fuming. 'I stood on top of a chair and I took pictures of him. I had enough. She could have killed him.' Malcolm was convinced Amber was responsible and wanted to document Johnny's injuries. 'Every time I see him he's got marks or scratches. She had a scary, scary temper… I thought, I could show up one morning and he'll be dead. She could kill him.' Since he'd met her, Malcolm had observed Amber as upbeat and happy, while Johnny looked like he was dying inside. 'She was la-la-ing around like Mary Poppins,' he said. Back at the Diamond Head mansion, Dr Kipper and Nurse Debbie tried to locate Johnny's missing fingertip while fending off Amber, who was fixated on returning to Johnny and being by his side. 'He needs me right now! Me!' Kipper and Debbie discussed what meds to give her to calm her down. Amber would later assert that on that morning she was fresh out of a 'three-day hostage situation', in which Johnny inflicted grievous bodily harm on her, including rape with a glass bottle. Jerry then called Christi, Johnny's sister. An audio recording captured his end of the conversation. 'There's been bottles thrown, and she – she admits to me she threw the first – she threw a bottle at him. She did it first.' He continued: 'She has scratches on her left arm, which Debbie told me about. Look, I've seen those scratches before on other people, and as far as I'm concerned, they're self-inflicted.' He told Christi about another injury to Johnny's face. 'She said on Friday he got a cigarette and put it out on his own face. With a cigarette, he was so out of it.' Johnny would later claim that Amber was the one who put the cigarette out on his cheek after throwing the vodka bottle at him and slicing his finger; it was all part of the same rageful outburst. But Amber would say Johnny was out of his mind on drugs, having taken ten ecstasy pills at once, as well as cocaine and liquor. She said she'd watched him smash a wall phone into pieces and lose his fingertip that way, though no evidence was found of a smashed phone. Jerry persuaded Amber to go back to Los Angeles. Plans were made for her to fly out early the next morning, March 9. Hours later, while Dr Kipper and Nurse Debbie continued looking for the missing piece of Johnny's finger, Ben King returned to Diamond Head to find the rental home destroyed. Inside the art room, Johnny had drawn a penis on top of a picture of Amber in a bikini, and drips of black paint covered the cream carpets. Red wine was splashed across the fabric wallpaper and white shag rug. Expensive lampshades had been painted with globs of black paint. Inside the bedrooms, drops of blood dotted the white duvets. A flatscreen TV hanging on the wall had a hole in the middle where a coffee mug had been hurled at it. Written on the mirrors in the bathrooms were disjointed phrases scrawled in black paint and blood: 'Starring Billy Bob Easy Amber,' 'She loves naked photos of herself, she's an artist,' 'So modern, So hot.' Then, written in different handwriting with red lipstick over the paint: 'Call Carly Simon, she said it better, babe.' Ben said that when he walked through the aftermath, there was a trail of blood leading from one bedroom to the next and in and out of several bathrooms. Inside one bedroom, the bed linens were covered in blood, and there was also a bloody iPad and a blood-smeared guitar. Broken glass and crushed cans littered the polished marble floor, the ping-pong table was collapsed in half, a window had been smashed, more expensive textiles were splattered with blood and paint. 'I think it's safe to say we lost our deposit,' Ben said aloud, trying to make light of it. He followed another trail of blood to the downstairs bar, which was set back from a pool table and lit with blue bulbs. On the floor was a bloody paper towel sitting next to cans, bottles and broken glass. Inside the towel was Johnny's fingertip. Ben went upstairs and placed it in a ziplock bag in a bowl of ice inside a plastic container. The fingertip was rushed to the hospital to give to the doctors. 'But it was too late.' Ben pulled an all-nighter cleaning up blood, broken glass, paint stains and booze. Next day, he escorted Amber back to LA. As they taxied down the runway, Ben asked, 'What happened?' Amber turned to look at him. 'Have you ever been so angry with someone you just lost it with them?' Just before they landed, Ben spotted the scratches on Amber's left forearm, the same wounds Jerry had seen and which he'd called 'self-inflicted'. They were long, thin, uniform vertical scratches. They stuck out to him because they were so consistent. Back at her penthouse, Amber gave Ben a tour before writing him a list of restaurants he should check out while in town. The next day, Amber had dinner with friends, including her personal nurse, Erin Falati. Erin's notes from the dinner read, 'Ct [client] appears in good spirits; laughing, socialising. Appetite normal.' Johnny would be back in LA soon for medical treatment, and Kipper, his addiction specialist, firmly requested that Nurse Erin keep Amber away from Johnny while he saw the hand surgeon and got 'his meds balanced'. In a message to Amber, Kipper stated: 'If you are convinced that all problems between the two of you stem from his drug abuse, why would you have participated with mushrooms on the island during the wedding and ecstasy in Australia? I want to help you both so please help me.' Apparently, Amber had also consumed ecstasy during the three-day 'hostage situation'. In his medical notes, Kipper wrote: 'Johnny romanticises the entire drug culture and has no accountability for his behaviour.' Meanwhile, the film company needed a story to give the public explaining why production on Pirates 5 had come to a halt. Three days after the finger incident a press release gave the 'official' story: 'Pirate steers off course! Johnny Depp injured his hand GO-KARTING with Mick Doohan at Australian motorbike champion's luxury estate – forcing the star to fly home.' Incredibly, four-and-a-half weeks later, Johnny and Amber returned to the house where the nightmare had unfolded. Ben had made good the damage. 'When they came back together in April, it was like a honeymoon. It was tickety-boo and lovey smiley,' he said. A few months later, on May 22, 2015, Amber addressed Johnny as 'My One and Only' in the couple's shared love journal, telling him that in him she found 'the madness of passion' as well as 'the safety of peace'. Amber would later allege that five more incidents of violence occurred after writing those words. One of those incidents happened during their belated honeymoon trip in July 2015, aboard the luxury Eastern Oriental train through Malaysia. As evidence, Amber produced for the court a handwritten page from her diary in which she wrote that he had choked and hit her. Johnny denied the allegation and presented honeymoon photos showing himself with an injured eye. At the end of the honeymoon, Amber wrote in their love journal: 'What a beautiful, extraordinary, magical, memorable, wonderful, stunning, surprisingly evolving and impulsive adventure. I couldn't have imagined a more gorgeous honeymoon.' Not surprisingly, the honeymoon didn't last. 'It hurt bad... I was so depressed': How Amber Heard broke Elon Musk's heart Soon after a restraining order against Johnny was granted in May 2016, a large plant was delivered to Amber's Los Angeles apartment, with a card reading: 'I had a wonderful weekend with you – E.' According to the sworn testimony of the concierge, Elon Musk already had his own key fob for the penthouse garage and had been visiting Amber regularly for over a year, late at night, when Johnny was away. In late June, Amber surprised Elon for his birthday. She flew to the Tesla factory in Fremont, California. On the way she picked wildflowers, and when she arrived, his security team helped her hide in the back of a Tesla. As Elon approached the car, Amber popped out of the back, clutching a bouquet. Two weeks later, in mid-July, Elon and Amber were spotted together in Miami, Florida. Amber was there with her sister, Whitney. The trio stayed in poolside villas at the Delano Hotel in South Beach, and Elon flew Amber and Whitney up to Cape Canaveral, where a SpaceX launch of Falcon 9 was scheduled to take place. Amber told Elon's biographer Walter Isaacson that it was 'the most interesting date' she'd ever been on. These were the first buds of a relationship that would grow into something serious. What no one knew until much later was that Amber and Elon's relationship was also turbulent and toxic, plagued by fighting, jealousy and dramatic accusations. Elon's inner circle would go on to state strikingly similar things about Amber's character as Johnny's people. As she was rebuilding her life and leaning into activism – when she briefly became an icon for the MeToo movement – things were heating up with Elon. Soon she'd be returning to Australia's Gold Coast to film Aquaman, only this time she'd be travelling with Elon instead of Johnny. In Australia, Elon rented Amber a beautiful home. Here, away from the office, his infatuation became problematic for executives at SpaceX and Tesla. For the first time, Elon was distracted from his life's work. 'It would be a Tuesday night and she would keep him up all night. There was a blatant disregard for the fact he had tens of thousands of employees and he had responsibilities,' said a source. 'She did more to slow the advancement of electric cars than the CEO of Exxon Mobil.' Elon himself later described the relationship with Amber as the most agonising of all his romantic relationships. 'It was brutal,' he said. For a man who has trouble accessing his humanity, Elon found that Amber evoked the most human of emotions: he was lovesick. A few months after the Australia trip, during an interview for Rolling Stone, a flustered Elon excused himself and had a pep talk with his chief of staff, Sam Teller. A few minutes later, he confessed to the reporter: he and Amber had just broken up and he 'was really in love and it hurt bad'. In fact, he'd barely been able to function at the launch of his Tesla Model 3 the night before. 'I've been in severe emotional pain for the last few weeks. Severe. It took every ounce of will to be able to do the Model 3 event and not look like the most depressed guy around. 'For most of that day, I was morbid. And then I had to psych myself up: drink a couple of Red Bulls, hang out with positive people and then tell myself, 'I have all these people depending on me. All right, do it!' ' This breakup wouldn't be their last – Amber and Elon continued to see each other, on and off, throughout the rest of 2017. A friend of Amber's who asked us not to use her name remembered a conversation in which Amber told her Elon was crazy, possessive and jealous, and that he'd placed cameras in her house, bugged her car, and was following her. But Amber's friend was sceptical: 'This is exactly the same s*** we just did with this other guy, Johnny. How is no one seeing this?' On a trip to Rio de Janeiro in December 2017, Amber and Elon had a fight that ended their relationship for good. Amber locked herself in their hotel room and started screaming that Elon had taken her passport and that she was scared she'd be attacked. Hotel security guards and Elon's sister-in-law, who was also on the trip, assured Amber that no one was trying to hurt her, she was safe, her passport was securely in her bag. She could leave whenever she wanted. But Kimbal, Elon's brother, said Amber's ability to shift her own reality was shocking. 'She really is a very good actress, so she will say things that you're like 'Wow, maybe she's telling you the truth' but she isn't.' After the split, Amber texted her agent, Christian Carino, who had arranged mediation between her and Johnny the year before: 'Dealing with breakup. I hate when things go public. See I'm so sad.' 'You weren't in love with [Elon],' Christian replied. 'You told me 1,000 times you were just filling space. Why would you be sad if you weren't in love with him to begin with?' Amber asked Christian to give Johnny a letter she wrote expressing her love for him and apologising for what happened. 'God I miss him,' she said. © Kelly Loudenberg and Makiko Wholey, 2025
Perth Now
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Alice Cooper believes Johnny Depp's problems are 'easily fixed'
Alice Cooper is convinced Johnny Depp can fix his "problems" by marrying a woman closer to his own age and reading the Bible. The rock legend has played alongside Depp in their band Hollywood Vampires since 2012, but the 62-year-old actor has been busy dealing with a number of personal issues including long-running legal battles over his relationship with ex-wife Amber Heard, 39. Alice is convinced his friend is now "doing well" but could do with some sage advice for the future. Alice, 77, told The Times newspaper: "I thought if he loses that [second lawsuit] suit, he could go down a rabbit hole and not come back. "But I think he's doing well now and I'm hoping he's gonna come and play with us at our London show. But Johnny's problems are easily fixed. "I keep telling him: quit marrying girls and marry a woman ... "I've read it [the Bible] 14 or 15 times. He'd do well to do the same amount. At least!" The Pirates of the Caribbean actor split from Heard in 2016 and his career went into freefall when she later wrote an op-ed about being a victim of domestic abuse, which led to a lengthy court battle after he sued her for defamation. He won the case and is now getting back to work in the movie business, and he recently insisted he's not holding a grudge. Depp previously told The Telegraph: "This sounds like horses*** but one can simply hold hate [until it] inspires some species of malice in your skull. "Makes you think of revenge. But hating someone is a great big responsibility to hang on to. "The real truth of it, that I won't allow, is that in order for me to hate, I have to care first. And I don't care. What should I care about? That I got done wrong to [by others]? Plenty of people get done wrong." When asked why he took his grievances to court, Depp insisted he didn't want "a lie" to do be the "deciding factor of whether or not I have the capability of making movies in Hollywood." Depp went on to insist he's learned a lot from the last few years and is determined to move on with his life. He added: "Going through all that in real time amounted to seven or eight years. "It was a harsh, painful internal journey. Would I rather not have gone through something like that? Absolutely. But I learnt far more than I ever dreamed I could.'
Fox News
01-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp has been acting for almost 40 years and has portrayed many characters on the screen, but among the long list of films he has been in, most know him as Jack Sparrow from the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise. Depp was born in Owensboro, Kentucky on June 9, 1963, to parents John and Betty Sue. He moved to Florida and spent a lot of his childhood there. Before starring in movies, primarily as the dark and chilling character, young Depp was in a band called "the Kids." His music career extended later in his career as well, as he was in another band called the "Hollywood Vampires." Depp's past relationships were complicated to say the least, but his first known relationship was with Lori Anne Allison, a makeup artist. The couple moved to Los Angeles, where he got connected with Nicholas Cage, and his decades-long acting career began. His movie debut was in "A Nightmare on Elm Street" in 1984. Although he has been in a lot of popular movies like "Sleepy Hollow," "Alice in Wonderland," and "Sweeney Todd," he is most known for the character that he played for over 10 years, Captain Jack Sparrow. Johnny Depp played Jack Sparrow in five "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies from 2003 to 2017. His "Pirates" costars include Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley. Depp has a net worth of $100 million (per Celebrity Net Worth), a long list of movies behind him and a long list of celebrity girlfriends, wives and proposals. After his divorce from Lori Anne Allison, he had relationships with many big Hollywood names, including Sherilyn Fenn, Jennifer Gray, Winona Ryder, Ellen Barkin and Kate Moss. After Moss, he had a 14-year relationship with with Vanessa Paradis. The former couple share two children together, a daughter, Lily-Rose Depp, and a son Jack Depp. In 2015, Depp and Amber Heard got married, but divorced in 2016. Heard wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post, implying that she was abused by Depp in 2018, and the two have been suing back and fourth since. The two took part in a very public defamation lawsuit in March and April 2022.
