How did it come to this? The astonishing downfall of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard

Seven years ago, he was a picture-perfect family man. This week, Johnny Depp’s personal life took its darkest turn yet.

There’s a stretch of sand, white and pristine, nestled just west of Puerto Rico’s capital city San Juan. Its name is Vega Baja.

Ringed in by rocks and fringed with palm trees, it’s a Caribbean oasis fit for the silver screen, which is why it became the location for several key scenes in Johnny Depp’s 2011 movie, The Rum Diary, based on his late friend Hunter S. Thompson’s novel of the same name.

The movie, set in the late-1950s, is loosely inspired by gonzo journalist Thompson’s time in San Juan in the sixties where he befriended writers at The San Juan Star after unsuccessfully applying for a job at the tabloid newspaper.

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Amber Heard was photographed getting close with billionaire Elon Musk.

It was here that Depp’s fictional character, journalist Paul Kemp, clad in a fedora we can only describe as questionable and sipping on a rum and coke, looked out on the ocean from a beach house.

And it was here Kemp meets Chenault, an enigmatic blonde played by Amber Heard, for the first time as she frolics in the water, skinny-dipping. “Oh God,” Kemp says at one point in the movie. “Why did she have to happen to me when I was doing so well without her?”

When life imitates art, as it so often does in Hollywood, it can be hard to separate fiction from reality. Depp and Heard met on the set of The Rum Diary and started quietly dating in 2012. They were married three years later.

Today, they are embroiled in one of Hollywood’s most bitter divorces, in which both parties have accused the other of intimate partner violence. Both Heard and Depp deny accusations of domestic abuse.

This week, Depp sued Heard for $93 million, alleging that her allegations of abuse had cost him one of his most iconic roles in cinema.

This week, Depp commenced proceedings on a defamation case against his ex-wife. In the case, Depp alleges that not only was Heard “not a victim of domestic abuse; she is a perpetrator”.

The Fantastic Beasts actor also claims that Heard used allegations of abuse as an “elaborate hoax to generate positive publicity”.

Depp argues that Heard cheated on him with Elon Musk.

Musk and Heard dated for a year after her split from Depp in 2016 and 2017, but Depp alleges that their relationship began just “one calendar month” after Heard and Depp were married in 2015. (A representative for Musk denies this.)

Depp’s legal team noted that they have photographic and video evidence to support these claims.

What happened between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard?

Amber Heard and Johnny Depp met on the set of The Rum Diary in 2011.

THE START

When the pair met in 2010, Depp was still ostensibly partnered with singer Vanessa Paradis. By many accounts, the marriage was breaking down, with People reporting in January 2012 that the couple were living separate lives.

They split officially in June 2012. At the time, Heard was in a relationship with artist Tasya van Ree.

A few days later, Us Weekly reported that Heard and Depp were “100 per cent dating”, after striking up a relationship while promoting The Rum Diary in 2011.

Depp “treats her really well”, Us Weekly added.

There was news that he had bought her a horse as a gift so that she could ride alongside him while he prepared for his movie The Lone Ranger.

The couple officially confirmed their relationship two years later when they walked the red carpet at a Los Angeles gala together in January 2014.

The pictures had barely been uploaded to Getty Images and disseminated in the tabloid media around the world before a new image was released of Heard with a gobstopper diamond on a very significant finger. Depp followed suit by wearing an engagement ring of his own.

“Can I take that as confirmation of your engagement?” a reporter asked him at a press conference in Beijing in March 2014.

“You can take that anyway you like, absolutely,” Depp replied.

“The fact that I’m wearing a chick’s ring on my finger is probably a dead giveaway. Not very subtle.”

Heard and Depp confirmed their relationship in 2014.

THE WEDDING

The bride wore white, and so did the groom. At Heard and Depp’s February 2015 wedding, on the star’s private island in the Bahamas, Heard wore a backless white dress and Depp a white tuxedo jacket. The intimate ceremony took place under a romantic floral arch in front of just two dozen friends and family.

The Bahamian wedding was the second for Heard and Depp, who tied the knot first in Los Angeles in a civil ceremony before redoing their vows in the Caribbean.

The island held special significance for both husband and wife. Depp bought it for a reported $5 million with the money he earned from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise after falling in love with the area during the filming of those movies.

For Heard, it was the island where, so moved by love for her, Depp had christened a beach with her name.

But in the months before the wedding, Heard and Depp’s relationship was haunted by rumours of turmoil. Several publications reported that they were on and off with alarming frequency. “Johnny is crazy in love with Amber, but there is turmoil in the relationship,” a source told People.

E! found their own source, who noted that the couple were “constantly on the rocks”.

According to People, Heard first got cold feet at the couple’s engagement party.

“She was just like, ‘What am I doing here?’” a source told the magazine.

But she worked through her misgivings. As another person told the publication: “When Johnny Depp wants you, you don’t really say no. Why would you?”

Depp and Heard fell foul of Australia’s strict quarantine laws when they failed to declare her pet dogs Pistol and Boo on arrival in the country on a private jet in 2015.

THE DOGS

Wedded bliss lasted just a few months for the couple.

By April 2015, their relationship was in the headlines again. Depp relocated to the Gold Coast to film the latest instalment in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

Production on the movie was dogged, pardon the pun, with disaster. First, Depp injured his hand in March, causing massive delays in filming. Then, Heard visited Depp on the set of the movie, arriving in Australia via private jet with her Yorkshire terriers, Pistol and Boo, in tow.

This did not go down well with then-Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce, who invoked the stringent Quarantine Act as part of Australia’s biosecurity laws to inform Depp and Heard that the dogs had to be removed from the country immediately or face execution.

“It’s time that Pistol and Boo buggered off back to the United States,” Mr Joyce said at the time.

Heard received a fine for falsifying a custom card in relation to her Yorkies

They did, but not before Heard was charged with bringing the dogs into the country illegally. She received a fine for falsifying documents, after Depp pleaded that they were ignorant of the requirements to bring in animals.

As part of their narrow escape under Australian law, Depp and Heard promised to do one thing for Joyce. The infamous apology video.

THE SEPARATION

It was all over on May 23, 2016.

Heard filed for divorce, three days after the death of Depp’s mother and one day after a reported altercation during which a 911 call was made on behalf of Heard by a friend listening into the fight through a mobile phone.

In documents from Heard’s court case against Depp, she alleges the pair were having a conversation about Depp’s mother when he turned violent.

“Johnny then grabbed the cell phone, wound up his arm like a baseball pitcher and threw the cell phone at me striking my cheek and eye with great force,” Heard alleged in the court documents.

“He then forcibly pulled back my hair as I attempted to stand from the sofa … Johnny continued screaming at me, pulling my hair, striking me and violently grabbing my face.” Depp has strenuously denied all allegations.

The images of Heard arriving at a Los Angeles court, eyes downcast and face bruised, were unforgettable.

The date was May 27, 2016, just four days after Heard had filed for divorce. These new legal proceedings were an attempt to seek a temporary restraining order against her estranged husband.

“I live in fear that Johnny will return to the residence unannounced to terrorise me physically and emotionally,” Heard said in the court documents.

Her request for a temporary restraining order was granted.

The case divided public opinion.

Depp denied all allegations and continues to do so to this day. His former partners Lori Anne Allison, Paradis — the mother of his two children — and Winona Ryder all rushed to his defence, as did his daughter Lily-Rose Depp.

By August, it was over.

The couple settled their divorce proceedings and Heard withdrew her domestic violence restraining order against Depp.

Heard was awarded $10 million in the settlement, which she said she would donate to charity.

“Our relationship was intensely passionate and at times volatile, but always bound by love,” the former couple said in a joint statement.

“Neither party has made false accusations for financial gains. There was never an intent of physical or emotional harm.”

Bruising on Amber Heard’s face she claims was inflicted by Johnny Depp.

THE CURRENT STATE

In the intervening years since the divorce settlement, things have disintegrated between Heard and Depp.

In early 2017, it was reported that Depp had not paid the settlement that Heard was planning to donate to charity and the divorce was not finalised.

Heard’s legal team filed a motion to enforce the payment, and Depp’s representatives responded with this statement.

“Amber is now courting renewed media attention with this unnecessary Request for Order,” their response read.

“Her application is not only a blatant attempt to extend her 15 minutes of fame but also a waste of the Court’s limited time.”

In October 2018, Depp gave an interview to GQ in which he referred to the images of Heard’s bruised face.

“She was at a party the next day. Her eye wasn’t closed. She had her hair over her eye, but you could see the eye wasn’t shut. 25 feet away from her, how the f**k am I going to hit her?” Depp was quoted.

“Which, by the way, is the last thing I would have done. I might look stupid, but I ain’t f***ing stupid.”

Heard’s lawyers responded: “If GQ had done even a basic investigation into Mr Depp’s claims, it would have quickly realised that his statements are entirely untrue.

“Mr Depp has blatantly disregarded the parties’ confidentiality agreement and yet has refused to allow Ms Heard to respond to his baseless allegations, despite repeated requests that she be allowed to do so …

“Mr Depp is shamefully continuing his psychological abuse of Ms Heard, who has attempted to put a very painful part of her life firmly in her past. One need only look at the physical evidence to draw the proper conclusion.”

Heard filed a restraining order against her estranged husband. The actress claims Depp attacked her at their apartment.

Then came the libel legal case.

In 2019, Depp sued British newspaper The Sun over an article that called him a “wife-beater”. Depp, who has always denied abuse allegations, contends that this is defamatory, while The Sun is mounting a defence that the story cannot be defamatory because it is true.

DEPP’S LATEST CASE AGAINST HEARD

The catalyst for Depp’s most recent case was an opinion piece Heard penned for The Washington Post in December about the fallout from her claims of abuse. In the piece, Heard wrote: “I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out.”

According to Depp’s legal team, the article “depended on the central premise” that Depp “perpetrated domestic violence against her”.

Depp alleges that as a result of that article he was fired from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

The battle between the former husband and wife continues.

“This frivolous action is just the latest of Johnny Depp’s repeated efforts to silence Amber Heard,” her legal team told People in a statement.

“She will not be silenced.

“Mr Depp’s actions prove he is unable to accept the truth of his ongoing abusive behaviour.

“But while he appears hellbent on achieving self-destruction, we will prevail in defeating this groundless lawsuit and ending the continued vile harassment of my client by Mr Depp and his legal team.”

— Hannah-Rose Yee is a freelance writer specialising in entertainment and pop culture. Continue the conversation @hannahroserose