New details into the seemingly toxic relationship between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard emerged in court Thursday, including how the two of them were mutually abusive during a short-lived union that everyone around them seemed to disapprove of.
“They engaged in, what I saw as, mutual abuse,” Dr. Laurel Anderson, the couple's former marriage counselor, who testified on Depp’s behalf, said in a video deposition played Thursday in Fairfax County Court. “I know she led on more than one occasion, and started it ... Abandonment and having him leave was her worst nightmare. And I think he may have initiated it on occasions—but that I am less sure of.”
The testimony came on the fourth day of a civil defamation case in Virginia, in which Depp alleges Heard “devastated” his career after she penned a 2018 Washington Post op-ed calling herself a domestic violence survivor. She did not name Depp in the piece.
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Depp has long denied being abusive—and insisted it was Heard who abused him during their relationship. Heard has repeatedly shot down those claims, saying she only ever acted violently in self-defense. She has since counter-sued Depp for defamation.
But Christopher C. Melcher, a celebrity divorce attorney who represented Kayne West in his divorce proceedings with Kim Kardashian, told The Daily Beast on Thursday that Anderson’s testimony supports both actors’ claims of abuse—and thus could sway the jury away from Depp’s allegations of defamation.
“This doesn’t seem to help either side, so I’m not really sure why they would present it,” said Melcher, who is not involved in the Depp case.“There are different levels of definitions of abuse. This marriage counselor saying they were mutually abusive kind of proves that point. This supports the truth of Amber’s statement she was the victim of an abusive relationship since the defense of nuance is so nuanced.”
Depp’s case took another hit on Thursday when long-time friend Gina Deuters, who was testifying on his behalf, had her entire testimony thrown out after admitting she had watched “clips” of the ongoing trial online.
Anderson, who said she worked with Heard and Depp during at least 21 sessions during their year-long marriage, said that both actors experienced abuse in their childhoods—and those traumas were carried into their relationship. The pair, who met on the set of 2011 film The Rum Diaries, were married in 2015 and divorced by August 2016.
The therapist said that during their sessions, Heard used a “jackhammer style of talking” that “triggered” Depp, who “had trouble talking at a similar pace.” Anderson said some of their sessions were done separately because of their communication styles—and during those private conversations, she learned about mutual abuse.
“He hits her. No closed fist. She hits back and starts it for pride because her father hit her,” Anderson said she wrote in one note after a session with Heard adding that the note was a description of Depp abusing his wife with an “open hand slap.”
“She says she hits back out of pride…a lot of things trigger her. If she is triggered she would hit him first,” the note added.
Heard’s former personal assistant, Kate James, testified on Depp’s behalf earlier Thursday, saying she never saw Heard suffer any physical abuse—and her ex-boss was in fact the one who would descend into bursts of blind rage.
James, however, admitted that she received a message from Depp in August 2016 in which he called his ex-wife “flabby.”
“I’m disgusted that I ever fuckin’ touched that scum,” Depp texted James, according to messages revealed in court. “Come over for a spot of purple and we’ll fix her flabby ass, nice and good!!! Loveth... J.”
Melcher said Thursday’s testimony may confuse the jury, since it detracts from the crux of Depp’s case: that Heard either acted with “actual malice” when she wrote the Post editorial—meaning that the actress knew what she had written was false—or that she wrote it with “reckless disregard” for the truth. The jury also must decide whether Depp has defamed Heard in his lawsuit.
“The jury isn’t being asked if this was a good or healthy relationship but they’re being asked if Amber’s statement was truthful and if it was made maliciously,” Melcher said, predicting that the jury “will believe this was a toxic relationship for sure.”
“So far, Depp’s team has done a good job arguing he was not physically violent, at least in one incident. But the question is not if he was physically violent. So I think they have a lot more work to do to prove Amber’s claims in the piece are false.”
