According to Johnny Depp, the secret to good acting is not to act, but rather to react. Nobody could say he hasn’t reacted to his ex-wife Amber Heard for portraying herself as a victim of domestic violence.
In a defamation legal action revealed a few days ago, he is demanding $50 million damages for a newspaper article she wrote on the issue, claiming it cost him his lucrative role in the Pirates Of The Caribbean films.
The actor, who played Captain Jack Sparrow, fired a broadside of allegations at his ex-wife, as I found when I read through the 40-page complaint filed in a Virginia court.
Actor Johnny Depp with ex-wife actress Amber Heard, pictured at a Hollywood premiere of '3 Days to Kill', are embroiled in a new court case as questions are raised over Heard's facial injuries she claimed Depp inflicted
It’s Depp’s bid not only to clear his name as an alleged wife beater, but also to paint his accuser as unfaithful and the real ‘predator’ in their unhappy marriage.
Citing new evidence from witnesses, the lawsuit claims Heard, star of the superhero film Aquaman, concocted with friends a false story about Depp’s violence towards her in order to advance her career and fame.
Not only were her allegations an ‘elaborate hoax’, it is claimed, but she cynically timed her latest attack to coincide with the release of the film which gave Heard her first starring role in big-budget feature.
Evidence submitted to Los Angeles Superior County Court by actress Amber Heard showing her bruised face. Actor Johnny Depp was issued with a restraining order after his estranged wife claimed she was a victim of domestic abuse
Depp, 55, also claims she was cheating on him with billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk pretty much throughout their marriage.
Depp adds that 32-year-old Heard was the violent one in their relationship, claiming he needed to have a finger surgically reattached after she hurled a vodka bottle at him.
Heard didn’t mention Depp in a December piece for the Washington Post, titled ‘I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath’. However, she wrote: ‘Two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse’, and the article was widely assumed to have been about him and the accusations she levelled against him during their acrimonious break-up in 2016.
The Pirates of the Caribbean star claims Heard cynically timed her allegations to coincide with the release of her new movie Aquaman
Depp’s lawyer, Adam Waldman, says the article was an ‘abuse of the #MeToo movement’ as Heard ‘masquerades as victim’ when she was actually the ‘abuser’.
The lawsuit cites testimony from staff at Eastern Columbia, a Los Angeles building where Depp and Heard shared a penthouse home, who ‘unanimously debunked’ her main allegation against the star.
Mr Waldman says he and his client looked forward to presenting ‘overwhelming video, photographic and eyewitness evidence’ to clear Depp’s name — a name now tainted in Hollywood’s #MeToo era.
But to understand the true nature of the case — and the vitriol involved — we have to examine this high-stakes battle between Depp and Heard chapter by chapter…
THE £5.3m DIVORCE DEAL
A divorce settlement had been reached early in 2017 which gave Heard £5.3 million (which she promised to give to charity), although there were conditions attached. The actress withdrew her accusations that he physically abused her.
Her claims had included that he dragged her by her hair and tried to smother her with a pillow. Bisexual Heard, who met Depp when appearing in his 2011 film The Rum Diary, also agreed not to talk further about their split.
Depp retracted his allegations that she was a gold digger. And they both admitted their marriage was ‘volatile’ but there was ‘never intent of physical or emotional harm’.
Depp and Heard first met while filming the Rum Diary, an adaptation of a Hunter S. Thompson novel. They began living together the following year, and eventually married in a private ceremony
However, their uneasy truce hardly ended hostilities. Sources say Heard is keen to appear in London’s High Court to defend a British newspaper Depp is suing for calling him a wife-beater.
Since their divorce, the pair have sniped like duelling wizards in the Fantastic Beasts films — over which creator J. K. Rowling had to publicly defend Depp’s casting as evil sorcerer Grindelwald, saying she was ‘genuinely happy’ to have him cast, based on her understanding of the ‘circumstances’ of his divorce.
However, Depp gave his critics ample ammunition by giving a disastrous interview in which he was portrayed as a self-pitying wreck who drinks vodka for breakfast and smokes endless cannabis joints.
Details of the extravagance of the cash-strapped star, who is said to have earned £489 million, further soured the mood against him.
Whether ridding himself of his ‘wife-beater’ label will solve all his problems is debatable, but he clearly feels it cannot be allowed to stand. Depp’s lawyers say they have provided supporting visual evidence in the form of 87 clips of footage from security cameras. It’s understood his team has 17 eyewitnesses waiting in the wings.
DAY DEPP WAS ‘LURED’ TO PENTHOUSE
The central accusation made by Heard — supported with a photo of her bruised cheek and eye — was that Depp unleashed a storm of violence on May 21, 2016.
According to Depp’s court claim, the incident was essentially a set-up in which Heard ‘lured’ him to their penthouse to pick up some of his belongings after he told her he wanted to split up. A female friend was also there, talking to another of Heard’s social circle on the phone.
Heard’s version of events is that Depp grabbed a mobile phone, ‘wound up his arm like a baseball pitcher’ and threw it at her, hitting her in the face ‘with great force’. She said he then battered her face and used a magnum of champagne as a weapon to destroy the flat.
The Eastern Columbia Building in downtown Los Angeles where Johnny Depp is reported to have paid $2 million for a penthouse apartment
Her two friends — including the one who was not in the penthouse but heard everything on the phone — supported her. Police were called to the penthouse that night and, as they’ve testified, saw no evidence of injury on her face or damage to the flat, the lawsuit notes. However, when Heard appeared in court six days later sporting a battered face, a judge granted her a temporary restraining order against Depp.
Depp left LA for many weeks for work almost immediately after the alleged incident, his lawsuit notes.
THE SUSPICIOUS CONCIERGE
While Depp was away, building staff — just like the police officers — noticed no sign of injury to Heard’s face in the few days in between the phone-hurling and her court appearance, according to the lawsuit. Cornelius Harrell, a concierge, was working on the front desk on the afternoon after the alleged assault. Depp’s lawyers say he was captured by the building’s security cameras taking Heard to the post room to collect
