Johnny Depp And Amber Heard’s Therapist Reveals Details Of Alleged Mutual Abuse
This looks bad for everyone.
Johnny Depp’s defamation trial against his ex-wife Amber Heard continues, and today came revelations a lot of Depp supporters have likely been waiting for. A video deposition from a marriage therapist who had 21 sessions with the couple before their divorce was played in the courtroom. She said that as husband and wife, Heard and Depp engaged in “mutual abuse.”
As reported by Deadline, the therapist was Dr. Laurel Anderson who discussed notes she had taken during 21 sessions with Amber Heard and Johnny Depp. In the deposition, Anderson said, “[Johnny Depp] had been well controlled for, I don’t know, for almost 20, 30 years, and both were victims of abuse in their homes, but I thought he had been well controlled for decades. And with Ms. Heard he was triggered and they engaged in what I saw as mutual abuse.” She described Heard as having a “jackhammer style of talking” and said she was usually “amped up.” Depp, on the other hand, usually had trouble speaking at the same pace as Heard.
Dr. Anderson’s notes detailed some of this “mutual abuse.” For example, in one note she wrote Johnny Depp “hits [Heard]. No closed fist. She hits back and starts it for pride because father hit her.” In her notes, Anderson had written that Heard described her now ex-husband hitting her with an “open hand slap.” The therapist’s notes also claim Heard “says she hits back out of pride…a lot of things trigger her.” But her notes also say Depp isn’t always the aggressor. “If [Heard] is triggered she would hit him first.”
The therapist also spoke about Amber Heard visiting her after an incident on May 21, 2016. She claimed Johnny Depp “threw a phone at her and struck her.” Dr. Anderson attested to seeing bruises on Heard’s face.
The reason why Depp supporters will likely see this as a huge win is that it can be interpreted as confirming allegations that arose in 2020 when the Daily Mail released audio recordings they’d obtained from Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s therapy sessions. In the recordings, Heard seemingly admits to physically hitting Depp and — as Dr. Anderson says in her deposition — sometimes being the aggressor. The recordings turned a lot of the actress’ supporters against her, and have since fueled fan campaigns to get her ousted from large properties, just as Depp has. Most notably, fans wanted her fired from her role as Mera in Warner Bros’ Aquaman films.
The $50 million defamation suit Johnny Depp filed against Amber Heard revolves around a 2018 op-ed the actress wrote for the Washington Post. Heard never mentions her ex-husband by name in the story, but Depp’s side claims it’s clear from what she wrote that she was calling her ex-husband a domestic abuser. Losing a similar lawsuit against the U.K. tabloid The Sun in 2020 was what immediately preceded Depp’s firing from the Fantastic Beasts film franchise.
Regardless of how the trial turns out, the marriage and its aftermath has certainly taken its toll on Johny Depp’s career. Along with being replaced by Mads Mikkelsen in the Fantastic Beasts franchise, it seems unlikely he’ll be showing up as Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean films any time soon, and MGM allegedly held up the North American release of his last film, Minamata, for over a year. All he seemingly has on his work schedule is voice work in the animated Puffins series and his first feature film casting in a while — an as of yet untitled biopic about the controversial Louis XV.
