A 471-page transcript from Amber Heard & Johnny Depp‘s messy 2016 divorce has been obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, and will likely be used as part of a defamation lawsuit Depp has filed against UK tabloid The Sun.
In the deposition transcripts, Heard tells Depp’s lawyer that the couple had a nickname for his violent alter ego, who she claims was responsible for the physical abuse she allegedly suffered in the relationship.
Johnny and I refer to his other personality, the part of him that is present when he beats me up – we call that the monster and have called [that] the monster for many years.
I was petrified of the monster.
In other parts of the document, Heard claims that in May 2016, Depp threw her phone at her face “as hard as he could“, smashed a number of objects in their apartment, and grabbed her by the hair.
Heard’s friend Raquel Pennington also features in the transcripts, where she testifies that she’d gone to the apartment that night after Heard texted her, to find Depp “swinging around” a magnum bottle of wine and trashing the apartment.
She said that eventually Depp’s security team arrived and convinced him to leave, and that she took “dozens” of photos of Heard’s bruises throughout her relationship with Depp.
However, LAPD officers who attended the scene after a 911 call had testimonies that significantly differed from Heard’s and Pennington’s. The officers both said that Heard, while distressed, did not appear to have any injuries or bruises, and that there were no smashed items on the floor.
Depp is suing The Sun over a story from April 2018, titled How can J.K. Rowling be ‘genuinely happy’ casting wife-beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film? He has claimed that Heard was the abusive party in the relationship. Both parties are under a nondisclosure agreement that was negotiated during their divorce.
