Amber: He’s Johnny rotten!
Ex-wife testifies: He beat me, threatened my life and even abused our little Yorkie
Amber Heard took the stand against “monster’’ Johnny Depp in a London courtroom Monday — and brought his libel case to a whole new level with more twisted allegations. No one was safe from the mud the pair threw at each other — along with the punches, bottles of booze and phones that one or both of them hurled — amid fights during their tortured relationship. When Depp wasn’t allegedly beating Heard, threatening to “f--k [her] corpse’’ after killing her, hoping she’d get raped and abusing their teacup Yorkshire terrier, he was accusing her of cheating with a string of celebrities while giving the men rude nicknames, the actress said in testimony and a 39-page written statement.
“He accused me of having affairs with each of my costars, movie after movie: Eddie Redmayne, James Franco, Jim Sturgess, Kevin Costner, Liam Hemsworth, Billy-Bob Thornton, Channing Tatum; even women co-stars like Kelli Garner,” Heard said in a witness statement, adding Leonardo DiCaprio to the mix, too.
“He . . . had derogatory nicknames for every one of my male co-stars he considered a sexual threat,” the 34-year-old “Aquaman’’ actress said of Depp, 57.
“For example, Leonardo DiCaprio was ‘Pumpkin-head,’ Channing Tatum was ‘Potato-head’ and [actor Jim Sturgess was] ‘Jim Turd Sturgess.’ ”
Heard appeared in court for the defense in Depp’s libel case against Britain’s The Sun tabloid over its 2018 headline that called him a “wife-beater.’’
Depp testified that he never hit Heard and claimed she would attack him — while she denies ever striking him even as he allegedly pummeled and strangled her.
Wearing a cream blouse and dark pencil skirt, Heard said her ex-husband’s booze- and drugfueled attacks occurred more than 12 times, starting in early 2013 when they were dating and continuing through their marriage.
The controlling, jealous actor would begin with emotional abuse, spewing insults at her if she dared to don something sexy — saying it would get her raped, Heard said in her statement.
“He demeaned me anytime I tried to wear anything that could be seen as sexy, calling me a ‘whore,’ ‘slut,’ ‘fame-hungry’ and ‘an attention whore,’ but it got worse over time,” Heard claimed.
“He started saying things like, ‘Well, I’m going to have to watch you get raped’ and ‘I hope you get railed by a bunch of f--king fellas.’ ”
Heard said that soon, “I had to justify to him why I was doing any movie” — with him snarling “about how people can watch me get f--ked on camera.”
On the pair’s now-infamous private flight from Boston to Los Angeles in 2014, Depp accused her of having an affair with “The Adderall Diaries’’ co-star Franco — and said he could arrange for “some black brothers” to “f--k” her, she said. Franco has denied that Heard cheated with him.
“At one point, I got up to move elsewhere on the plane, and [Depp] said, ‘Are you f--king walking away from me?’ and he kicked me hard in the back,” Heard claimed.
“He kept verbally abusing me, saying things like, ‘When we land, I can call some black brothers who can f--k you if you’re so desperate for it.’ ”
She said Depp texted her afterward, “Once again I find myself in a place of shame and regret.”
Heard said the first time that Depp struck her was in early 2013 — over his former “Winona Forever” tattoo. He’d gotten the ink when with ex-fiancée Winona Ryder, but had it changed to “Wino Forever” after they split.
“We were talking about [the tattoo],” Heard wrote. “I laughed at something he said, but he must not have meant it as a joke, and he hit me with an open hand across my cheek.”
Then he “hit me again even harder,” she wrote.
“It felt like my eye popped out. Johnny wears a lot of rings, one on every finger. This third hit knocked me off balance, and I fell to the floor.
“This was the first time I heard him talk about this other person, ‘the monster,’ as he called it,” she said, referring to Depp’s alleged violent alter ego when drinking and high.
Heard said her then-boyfriend attacked her again weeks later.
“He hit me in the face with the back of his hand and drew blood, some of which ended up on the wall,” her statement read.
Around the same time, Depp al
legedly dangled their teacup Yorkshire terrier out of the window of a moving car while “howling like a dog.”
“We shared two small dogs at the time, Pistol and Boo,” Heard said. “He took Boo and held her out of the window of the moving car, as some sort of joke or prank, while he himself was howling like a dog.” Depp has denied the claim. Before they wed in February 2015, Depp also hit Heard in a fight over a prenuptial agreement — and the actor assured her that the “only way out” of their marriage was “death,” the actress charged.
She told the court she was never interested in his money.
The pair ended up not signing a financial agreement. Heard, who finalized her divorce from Depp in 2017, walked away from their split with $7 million, which she donated to charity.
A month after the marriage, Depp allegedly launched a marathon of assaults on a naked Heard in Australia — threatening to kill her and then “f--k her corpse,” the court heard.
The fight ranged from her alleged infidelities to the unsigned prenuptial agreement.
During the “three-day hostage situation . . . he pulled me around by my neck and pushed me down against the bar, I was against the bar, naked, bent over backwards, my back against the marble,”
Heard’s statement alleged.
“He was pressing so hard on my neck I couldn’t breathe.
“He was screaming at me, over and over again, ‘You ruined my life! I hate you! I’m going to f-king kill you, and I’ll f–k your corpse!’ ” she said.
“I really thought I might die.” The tip of Depp’s right middle finger was sliced off during the fight. Heard said she never struck Depp, although she might have thrown things at him.
On Monday, Depp’s legal team introduced a 2015 recording that was already made public, in which she calls him a “f--king baby” and admits, “I hit you.”
Heard has said he was violent right up to the end of their relationship, including after her 30th birthday party at their Los Angeles penthouse in May 2016.
She said Depp hurled a magnum of champagne at her that night, pushed her down, yanked her by the hair and left a note saying, “Happy f--king birthday.”
He also allegedly trashed the pad, plus another penthouse she used as an office and for storage.
One of Depp’s lawyers, Eleanor Laws, suggested Heard and two pals wrecked the joints and faked her injuries, telling the actress, “It’s all lies, isn’t it?”
Heard replied, “No.”
She said the violence was a far cry from how their relationship began in 2011, two years after they met on the set of “The Rum Diary,” when she was dating artist Tasya van Ree and he was with French singer Vanessa Paradis.
“He was engaging and intellectual and dark and funny,” Heard said. “I was captivated.”
She said Depp urged her to keep their relationship on the sly for awhile to protect her from the press.
“When I would go to his compound on Sweetzer Avenue in Los Angeles or meet him on set, he would send a driver for me, and I would have to hide under a blanket in the car,’’ Heard said.
“It was like I was dating a king.’’