Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s former marriage counselor revealed that they engaged in “mutual abuse” throughout their married life.
The deposition of Dr. Laurel Anderson, which was recorded on February 21, was played on Thursday for the courtroom in Fairfax, Virginia. Depp is suing his ex-wife Heard for defamation following the op-ed she wrote in 2018 on surviving domestic violence.
Anderson was asked if there was “violence from Mr. Depp toward Amber” and she answered, “Yes, you’re right. He had been well controlled, I think, for almost, I don’t know, 20, 30 years. Both were victims of abuse in their homes, but I thought he had been well controlled for decades. And then with Ms. Heard he was triggered, and they engaged in what I saw as mutual abuse.”
She also claimed that there were times when Heard initiated the fights so to “keep him with her” because “abandonment was her worst nightmare.”
She also revealed that the actress told her before that it was “a point of pride to her if she felt disrespected to initiate a fight. If [Depp] were going to leave her to deescalate the fight, she would strike him to keep him there because she would rather be in a fight than have him leave.”
The marriage counselor also recalled seeing “multiple” small bruises on the actress’s face during their in-person meeting.
The two met in 2011 while making the movie The Rum Diary and split in May 2016. Heard accused him of abusing her which the actor denied. They had an out-of-court divorce settlement in August 2016.
In March 2019, Depp filed a $50-million lawsuit but it was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The actor lost the libel lawsuit case against The Sun in November 2020 after calling him a “wife-beater”. The court upheld that the claims were “substantially true”. Heard even testified to back up the outlet’s claims. He attempted to overturn the decision in March 2021 but it was overruled.
Meanwhile, Heard took to Instagram recently stating that she’ll be staying away from social media until the trial is over. She also thanked her followers who’ve been supporting her.
In part, she wrote, “Hopefully when this case concludes, I can move on and so can Johnny. I have always maintained a love for Johnny and it brings me great pain to have to live out the details of our past life together in front of the world.”
