‘Torture’: How Johnny Depp and Amber Heard first met

With the bitter court battle between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard now over, people are asking how the pair even got together in the first place.

As another chapter of the toxic romance that’s captured the world’s attention has come to a close, followers of the Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard saga have been left wondering; how is it possible that these two fell in love at all?

A verdict was finally reached, with Depp winning the trial against Heard.

It also makes for one of the most intriguing origin stories in recent Hollywood gossip history.

How could a pair that seemingly despise each other so deeply ever have fallen in love in the first place? What could possibly have brought these two together?

2009 – The die is cast

Like many A-list couples before them, Heard and Depp met on the movie set, co-starring together in the Bruce Robinson box office bomb The Rum Diary.

Based on the book of the same name written by Depp’s real life friend Hunter S. Thompson, the film portrayed Depp as dishevelled writer Paul Kemp, who falls in love with Chenault (Heard), a woman engaged to another writer in the same town.

Amber Heard and Johnny Depp in The Rum Diary. Picture: supplied

While the movie flopped at the box office, it was the basis for a passionate and destructive romance between the two stars.

“Working with Johnny was torture. It was better than I ever imagined, which is really saying something,” Heard told Vogue in 2011.

2012 – Old flames extinguished, new sparks kindled

When Heard and Depp met they were both in long-term relationships – Heard with photographer and painter Tasya van Ree and Depp with actress Vanessa Paradis, with whom he had two children.

Both parties split with their significant others in 2012, with Heard stating the pair began dating “around the end of 2011 or the start of 2012” in a court filing.

Heard and Depp, pictured during happier times in 2014. Picture: Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Art of Elysium

For the next few years, the couple kept a relatively low profile (as far as drama goes), before announcing their engagement in 2014.

“(Heard’s) a wonderful girl … (she’s) sweet as can be and very good for me,” Depp told NBC’s Todayin an interview at the time.

2015 – Marriage, Barnaby, divorce and lawsuits

Depp and Heard tied the knot in a very private ceremony at the start of 2015, with a tight-knit circle of family and friends in attendance.

Several months later the pair were in the limelight again – this time in Australia – when Heard smuggled the couples' two dogs, Pistol and Boo, into Australia while Depp was filming a new instalment of Pirates of the Caribbean on the Gold Coast.

In doing so she violated Australian quarantine laws, prompting then-deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce to famously threaten to euthanise the canines.

Heard and Depp posted an apology video together, one of the last unified appearances of the pair before Heard filed for divorce in May 2016, citing “irreconcilable differences”.

Heard and Depp in their apology video for ‘terrier-gate’, uploaded shortly before they separated. Picture: Supplied

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

Two years later in 2018, The Sun published an article labelling Depp a “wife-beater,” to which the Edward Scissorhands actor responded with a lawsuit, which he subsequently lost.

Heard then produced a ghostwritten piece for TheWashington Post in December that year, calling herself a “figure representing domestic abuse”.

The rest is ugly history – and it’s been nigh impossible to look away.

Originally published as ‘Torture’: How Johnny Depp and Amber Heard first met