‘Really in love': Truth of Johnny Depp, Amber Heard romance

News.com.au

4 days ago

It's been almost a decade since Amber Heard first filed for divorce from Johnny Depp, in what became one of the most talked-about breakups in Hollywood history.
In the bitter disputes that followed, each accused the other of violence and addiction issues, and startling stories emerged about Depp severing his own finger to scrawl messages on a mirror with the bloodied tip. Heard, meanwhile, was accused of relieving herself in the marital bed (she blamed their dogs, teacup Yorkshire terriers Pistol and Boo).
It was genuinely shocking stuff. And journalists Kelly Loudenberg and Makiko Wholey were in the box seat to witness every sad and sordid detail, which they now unpick in their HarperCollins book Hollywood Vampires: Johnny Depp, Amber Heard And The Celebrity Exploitation Machine.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Loudenberg said she hoped the book would remind readers that there was genuine love between the couple before the divorce became a media circus.
'We tried to write that into the story,' she said.
'We feel that there was a love they had for each other. There was a special connection to each other, which makes it all the more tragic and sad.'
Her co-author, Wholey, also weighed in, saying, 'It's probably why it exploded so much. It did seem like they really were in love with each other for a time.
'But we brought it back to this idea of Hollywood, the machinations of Hollywood, making everything distorted for people. It's hard to find love in a hopeless place.'
Certainly, theirs was a classic Hollywood love story of a famous older actor falling for his much younger co-star, when Depp, now 62, and Heard, 39, met on the set of 2011 movie The Rum Diary.
They tied the knot in 2015, on Depp's private island in the Bahamas, where they enjoyed an intimate celebration of dinner, dancing and drugs with their nearest and dearest. Depp's son Jack was in the wedding party, but his actress daughter Lily-Rose refused to attend.
Fifteen months later, Heard filed for divorce, unleashing a deluge of mudslinging that has made Brangelina's legal stoush look like a fairytale uncoupling.
Nobody came out a winner.
Depp lost the first round when a UK judge found a 'great majority' of Heard's accounts could be proven on the balance of probabilities. The ruling led to the Pirates Of The Caribbean star being sacked from the Harry Potter spin-off Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore.
The US actor then took the battle back to home soil, suing Heard for $77 million over an op-ed she wrote in The Washington Post in which she claimed to be a survivor of domestic abuse. Heard sued back, with a $154 million counterclaim against Depp.
The American jury sided with Depp, awarding him more than $23 million in damages. He was also found to have defamed Heard via his lawyer, and ordered to pay her $3 million.
The proceedings, which saw actress Ellen Barkin take the stand and Depp's private texts with Paul Bettany shared in open court, were broadcast live.
So feverish was the interest that large crowds of spectators would gather outside the courthouse each day. Some even arrived hours early to wait in line for a coveted spot inside the courtroom.
While giving her evidence, Heard described the toll of the attention: 'I am harassed, humiliated, threatened every single day.
'Even just walking into this courtroom, sitting here in front of the world, having the worst parts of my life, things that I've lived through, used to humiliate me. People want to kill me, and they tell me so every day.'
Heard has now largely retreated from the public eye, moving to Spain to raise the three children she has since welcomed alone. By contrast, Depp is on the comeback trail.
His first major Hollywood film since the trial, Day Drinker, alongside his Pirates co-star Penelope Cruz, is in production. And he's also the face of Hyde in a graphic novel series being produced by Ridley Scott based on the Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde novella by Robert Louis Stevenson.
But, with his once sparkling brand still tarnished, how that goes remains to be seen.
Dive further into this ugly tale with these documentaries on Tubi:
Hot Take: The Depp/Heard Trial: Actors Mark Hapka and Megan Davis play the famous warring couple in this 2022 dramatisation of their embittered legal proceedings.
Johnny Depp: Surviving Amber Heard: This 2023 two-parter takes a deep dive into Depp and Heard's relationship and their patterns of behaviour as individuals and as a couple.