Johnny Depp, Amber Heard: Grim new details of Gold Coast fight

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2 days ago

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The tempestuous relationship of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard comes under the microscope in a new book by journalists who covered the A-list couple's courtroom battle. This extract from Hollywood Vampires dives into that infamous night of mayhem in Australia when everything came to a head.
Johnny Depp and Amber Heard were still celebrating their nuptials when Johnny's freelance butler Ben King pulled into the palatial carport at Diamond Head, a colonial estate and riverfront mega mansion on Australia's Gold Coast.
Soon the newlyweds would arrive at the estate. There was no time for a honeymoon after their February 2015 wedding; both Johnny and Amber were due back at work to start shooting their new films.
Diamond Head's owner, Aussie motorcycling champion Mick Doohan, was away on tour.
I spy trouble on the horizon … Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow with Orlando Bloom as Will Turner in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.
Mick 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.
The film would be shot exclusively in Australia after the Australian government offered Disney $20 million in tax incentives. It was the largest international feature film shoot in the country's history and the newest instalment would be an emotional exploration of Jack Sparrow's backstory.
At Diamond Head, Ben scoped out the movie theatre and gym then entered the primary suite. He was surrounded by stacks of suitcases containing everything Johnny and Amber would need for their home away from home. There was a box filled entirely with candles. Several more suitcases were filled with art supplies. Then he unpacked and hung Johnny's clothes, mostly an assortment of tattered, patched, and stained bohemian garb.
Gold class … Mick Doohan's Diamond Head home, rented by Depp and Heard.
'Stained bohemian garb' … Amber Heard and Johnny Depp in March 2014.
Nathan Holmes, Johnny's long-time assistant, had arrived earlier in the week. Between him and Ben, everything had been taken care of for Johnny and Amber's arrival. Nathan rented go-karts for the racetrack outside. He also found an art teacher for Amber because she wanted to take painting classes. The two men were soon joined by Chef Russell. Johnny arrived in Australia first and Amber a couple of weeks later. Immediately they 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 the weddings. He said Amber believed he was trying to 'trick her' into receiving nothing from the postnup and complained that she wasn't even listed in his will. Without a pre- or postnup, per California law, Amber would automatically be entitled to 50 per cent of everything Johnny made during their marriage if they split.
STREAM FREE ON TUBI: DEPP/HEARD DOCUMENTARIES
On the evening of Friday, March 6, Johnny and Amber were snuggled under a blanket to watch TV when Chef Russell said goodbye for the weekend. He reminded the pair that he'd prepared meals for the weekend that only needed to be reheated.
On Sunday, Malcolm Connolly, Johnny's bodyguard got a call from Jerry Judge, Johnny's head of security. 'Something's happened with the boss, man,' Jerry said. 'You need to extract him. Just extract him, take him out of there.'
'Something's happened with the boss' … a photo released by Johnny Depp's lawyers showing him in hospital with an injured finger. Picture: Schillings
'You f**k off with your guys' … Amber Heard during the acrimonious 2022 defamation case between the couple at Fairfax County Circuit Courthouse in Virginia.
Malcolm and Johnny's driver raced to Diamond Head. When he walked in the door, Amber was wearing a cardigan and a shiny slip, and screaming at Johnny. Johnny screamed 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 appendage. The claims were later disputed in court.
Malcolm looked at Johnny's finger and thought, 'This looks like a captain cigar, like what you see in the cartoons.' He said to Johnny, 'Let's move, get in the car.' He crossed over to Johnny and pushed him toward the door. 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**k off. You f**k off with your guys. You're a fucking coward, you big man,' Amber screamed at him.
Johnny kept running back up the stairs to continue the fight, begging Malcolm, 'Let me stay for a few more minutes.' Finally, Malcolm pulled him down the stairs and out of the house. He put him in the car and walked around to the other side to sit behind Johnny in the back seat.
Trashed … inside the mansion after that night.
Damage … another room in the prestige home.
'Johnny, LET'S GO!' Malcolm demanded.
With Johnny in the back seat wailing, Malcolm and the driver raced back to Malcolm's apartment in Broadbeach. 'It's going to be all right, boss,' he reassured Johnny. The driver parked in the underground garage and Malcolm snuck Johnny inside through a back passageway.
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 Lloyd who, along with Dr Kipper, a specialist in addiction care, had been engaged by Johnny's team the previous year. Both had flown out to Australia and were installed in apartments near the mansion to be on call.
'Get here fast,' he said. Johnny moaned behind him.
Kipper and Debbie arrived at Malcolm's apartment, took one look at Johnny's hand, and drove him to the hospital. Inside the ER, Johnny, still wearing his sunglasses, laid 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.'
'Clear trail of blood leading from one bedroom to the next' … Ben King.
'Looks like a captain cigar' … Johnny Depp displays the middle finger of his hand during his defamation trial against Heard in Fairfax, Virginia, April 20, 2022.
Malcolm wanted to document Johnny's injuries. 'Every time I see him, he's got marks or scratches. It really was dangerous, man, dangerous. I thought I could show up one morning and he'll be dead.'
Back at the Diamond Head mansion, Dr Kipper and Nurse Debbie tried to locate Johnny's missing fingertip. There was still time to stitch it back on.
At some point that morning, Amber's cell phone had been positioned on the first floor near the front entrance. Still actively recording audio, it captured Dr Kipper and Nurse Debbie's conversation. When questioned about it later, Amber explained that Johnny 'took her phone and pressed record' before security got there.
The recording would eventually become a significant piece of evidence at trial. Amber would later assert that on that Sunday 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 liquor bottle.
But on the recording, in the presence of her doctor and a nurse, Amber didn't mention any of the bloodied cuts and gashes covering her arms or her 'shredded' feet caused by several broken glass bottles.
Amber Heard showing injuries said to have been sustained during a separate incident at the couple's Los Angeles penthouse. It was released by a London court during Depp's unsuccessful libel suit over a 2018 article that said he had physically abused his ex-wife.
Johnny Depp seen with a bruised face in March 2015, in a picture released by Fairfax County Court. He won his US defamation case against Heard over claims of abuse, though the jury also ruled he had defamed her via statements made by his lawyer in the press.
As the medical team tried to find Johnny's finger, Amber became fixated on returning to Johnny and being by his side, but Dr Kipper wouldn't hear it.
Amber sobbed in the background – 'He needs me right now! Me!' - while Kipper and Debbie discussed what meds to give her to calm her down.
Jerry Judge urged Amber to go back home to Los Angeles, but she remained reluctant. She believed the relationship would be over if she did. 'I can't leave, I can't leave. It'll be the end if I leave,' she said.
While Amber was sequestered upstairs, Jerry Judge called Christi Dembrowski, Johnny's sister and business partner, filling her in on what had happened that morning. The 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.'
Amber would claim 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.
Plans were made for Amber to fly back to Los Angeles early the next morning, March 9, 2015 and Ben King returned to Diamond Head to find the rental home wrecked.
Ben said that when he walked through the aftermath, there was a clear 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.
Wave of allegations … Amber Heard during her former husband's libel case.
Finger-pointing … Depp outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
Both Johnny and Amber later claimed to have been hiding from each other in various rooms of the house.
Ben followed another trail of blood to the downstairs bar, which was set back from a pool table, lit with blue lighting. 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 the flesh inside a zip-lock bag and put the bag in a bowl of ice inside a plastic container. The fingertip was rushed to the hospital to give it to the doctors, but according to Ben, 'The fingertip didn't find its way back to his finger, because it was too late.'
In the end Ben escorted Amber back to LA. On the ride to the airport, Amber talked on her phone to several people, one of them Johnny. She'd later testify that he called her from the hospital to ask if he had 'killed it,' meaning the relationship.
As they taxied down the runway, Ben asked the question that had been burning into him. 'What happened to the house?'
Landlord to the stars … Aussie motorcycle legend Mick Doohan.
He said Amber turned to look at him. 'Have you ever been so angry with someone, you just lost it with them?'
Meanwhile, Jerry Bruckheimer's production company, JBF Inc., 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 with their 'official' story was released: 'Pirate steers off course! Johnny Depp injured his hand GO-KARTING at motorbike champion's luxury estate – forcing the star to fly home.'
Photos showed Johnny boarding his private jet, flashing a gold-toothed grin for the paparazzi. He held his injured hand like a sock puppet against his chest, his forearm and hand sheathed in black skull-and-crossbones fabric that was sloppily wrapped up with silver duct tape.
Soon he'd be on an operating table in Los Angeles for a skin grafting, in which skin from another part of his hand would be used to cover the portion of his finger that had been severed.
A pin would also be placed in the broken bone. After the operation, Johnny posed for a picture, flipping off the camera with a massive middle finger bandaged up in pink gauze patterned with little purple hearts. As for Disney, they lost US$350,000 for every day that the production was shut down.
Deep dive into a troubled time … Hollywood Vampires.
This is an edited extract fromHollywood Vampires: Johnny Depp, Amber Heard, and the Celebrity Exploitation Machineby Kelly Loudenberg and Makiko Wholey. It will be published in Australia by HarperCollins on August 12.
Want to go further into the Depp/Heard story? Watch for free on Tubi:
Documentary – Depp vs Heard: All the Line
Docu-series – Surviving Amber Heard
Dramatisation – Hot Take: The Depp/Heard Trial
Originally published as 'Trail of blood': New book walks through horror night at Johnny Depp and Amber Heard's Aussie mansion