The lead-up to Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s wedding celebration was one long party. Guests arriving at the jetty on Little Halls Pond Cay – Johnny’s private island in the Bahamas, a 45-acre paradise of brilliant green flora and white sands – were greeted by a black skull and crossbones flag, whipping in the warm winds.
Moroccan rugs and pillows formed lounging areas on the beach and there were yurts further inland to sleep in. The atmosphere was relaxed, to say the least. One of Amber’s bridesmaids offered the drug MDMA to Johnny’s British chef, Russell Borrill, as he was ferrying meals to the impromptu dining area.
Others were getting drunk on Chateau Pichon at nearly $500 a pop: ‘There were people walking around drinking out of the bottle.’ Russell did his best, cooking themed food for around 40 people each day – BBQ with pulled pork ribs, a Spanish feast, then Caribbean – but much of it went to waste as ‘people were hungover, people were doing drugs’.
At some meals, no one turned up.
On Saturday, February 7, 2015, Johnny and Amber’s wedding – which followed a smaller, legal ceremony in Los Angeles – was held under an arbour draped in gauzy white fabric and decorated with greenery and white roses. Amber walked down the aisle to the Van Morrison song Sweet Thing.
Johnny’s son Jack was best man.
Johnny wore a white suit with a black vest and pocket chain, while Amber’s dress was white lace and she had a long, sheer veil. They embraced and smiled for their friends’ cameras.
‘They looked high as kites,’ recalled Bruce Witkin, an old friend who had played in a band with Johnny when they were teenagers. Bruce clocked some of Johnny’s personal medical staff in the crowd. ‘Johnny looked sedated. Amber too. They looked like f***in’ zombies. If you need that much medication to get along with the person you love, there’s something wrong.’
Suddenly, everyone looked up. There was a helicopter pulsing above. The Press. Amber and Johnny stuck their middle fingers indignantly to the sky. The bridal party followed suit, giving the bird and laughing.
Grainy pictures of the ceremony hit tabloids around the world. The glamorous coming together of Hollywood stars, an idyllic setting – what could be more perfect? But the truth was Johnny and Amber’s inner circle believed this was a match made in hell: friends, family, employees and acquaintances were already being dragged into their fights as participants – and, later, as sworn witnesses.
We started filming a documentary about the couple in March 2021. With the co-operation of both Johnny and Amber, we spent two years interviewing more than 100 people about their doomed marriage and its aftermath – which saw court battles in the UK and US in which both parties made accusations of domestic violence.
We pored over witness statements, journal entries, therapy notes and audio and video evidence. We have done our best to be fair and balanced.
Their story begins in early 2009, when Johnny started shooting The Rum Diary, a film adaptation of a novel by his friend and hero Hunter S. Thompson, known for his love of firearms and illegal drugs.
Johnny was a global superstar, thanks to Pirates Of The Caribbean, a Disney franchise that would eventually make $4.5 billion at the box office. At that time he was among the highest-paid actors in the world, reportedly making north of $50 million a year. Amber had scored a few minor roles as the ‘hot girl’ in movies.
She had auditioned for the part of Chenault, Johnny’s love interest in The Rum Diary, and really wanted the part, sending handwritten letters to the producers and director.
When Johnny first met Amber at his office, he took one look at her and thought: ‘Yep… that’s the one… she could definitely kill me. That’s what Hunter wants.’
But as he sailed his $30 million yacht, the Vajoliroja, into Puerto Rico for the shoot, an unexpected crisis arose. Amber turned up with a girlfriend and introduced her to Bruce Robinson, the director (whose previous work included Withnail And I), as ‘my wife’.
A panicked Bruce, concerned that the co-stars wouldn’t have chemistry, exclaimed: ‘She’s gay?’ Johnny tugged on a cigarette and told Bruce not to worry. ‘No leading lady of mine stays gay for very long.’
By that time, Johnny had been with Vanessa Paradis, the mother of his children, for 11 years. Their relationship was starting to fracture as Johnny’s drinking and drug use picked up.
On set, everyone from the director to the PAs saw Johnny and Amber’s mutual infatuation unfold in real time. In a now infamous scene from the film, they stand under a shower and kiss, running their hands through each other’s hair. ‘That moment… felt like something I should not be feeling,’ Johnny later said. Amber also admitted: ‘It didn’t feel like a normal scene. It felt real.’
After nearly two-and-a-half months, production wrapped. Johnny took a holiday on his yacht with Vanessa and their kids, Lily-Rose and Jack.
Amber returned to LA, where Johnny sent her a gift – a dress she’d worn in the movie with a note that read ‘Happy Wrapping’. This was in addition to a bicycle, expensive collectible books and a guitar he’d already gifted her.
Johnny’s mounting struggles with alcohol and money were hastening the demise of his partnership with Vanessa.
Even though he was starring in big-budget movies, he was digging himself into debt with his profligate habits. His monthly wine bill was more than $30,000 and he had spent close to $5 million to shoot Hunter S. Thompson’s ashes out of a cannon.
It only got worse. By 2016 Johnny was spending $10,000 a day on security and $300,000 a month on full-time staff, many of whom managed the 14 properties he owned around the world, which had cost him nearly $75 million.
In June 2012, Johnny and Vanessa announced their separation. According to his British assistant and friend Stephen Deuters, Johnny felt enormous guilt as their children were still young.
Even though they’d never married, Johnny reportedly gave Vanessa $100 million.
That same month, he gave Amber a $6,500 Palomino horse she named Arrow. There were tabloid reports that she regularly visited Johnny on the set of The Lone Ranger in New Mexico.
For his 49th birthday, Amber gave him a turquoise-handled knife, the blade inscribed with ‘hasta la muerte’, meaning ‘until death’. Less than a week later, she and her girlfriend split up.
Bruce Witkin was stunned to find Johnny jumping straight into another relationship. He thought Amber, who was 23 years younger, represented the aspiring, ambitious side of Hollywood that Johnny had always run from. He encouraged him to enjoy being a bachelor and ‘Go Clooney it up’.
But Johnny was a serial monogamist. Before Vanessa, he’d had serious relationships with Kate Moss and Winona Ryder. He’d been engaged four times.
Even so, throughout 2012, he and Amber weren’t exclusive. She had started seeing Marie de Villepin, a French artist, and was also being pursued by billionaire Elon Musk. But Johnny vowed not to let a girl like Amber ‘slip through his fingers’. Every day in September 2012, he sent her a handwritten poem and a bouquet of roses.
When she visited his island in the Bahamas, she was met with a surprise: Johnny had built a $3 million beach bar that was a replica of the one from The Rum Diary set.
It was no secret that both Johnny and Amber enjoyed drugs. Friends at a weekend camping trip were treated to Amber’s ‘special wine’, spiked with MDMA.
Johnny accused a woman in the group of getting too close to Amber, then he and Amber retreated to their trailer and had an argument – one that would later be cited as ‘violent incident 3’ out of 14 incidents of domestic violence detailed by Amber in legal filings.
Johnny took out his rage, Amber would allege, by breaking a sconce and a glass cabinet. She also alleged he ripped off her dress and forced a ‘cavity search’ on her body while hunting for cocaine. Johnny denied Amber’s claims.
Both came from difficult backgrounds. Johnny described his childhood as ‘shellshocked’ due to his abusive mother: he tried her ‘nerve pills’ at 11, started smoking at 12 and lost his virginity at 13.
Both of Amber’s parents struggled with substance abuse. Her father used ‘heavy discipline’, hitting her and her sister Whitney with hands and belts. A 1982 police report cited him in connection with illegal dog-fighting. On the property listed as ‘under the charge and control’ of David Heard were ‘instruments’ including a poker used to commit animal cruelty.
Amber had her own apartment but began spending time at Johnny’s replica Bavarian castle in West Hollywood.
The historic mansion boasted an underground conveyor belt to the street for deliveries, 125 stained-glass windows and hand-painted wallpaper. Even though Amber hadn’t yet moved in with Johnny, his estate manager noted she spent close to $80,000 changing paint colours around the house.
A close friend said that during this time she transformed from a self-possessed woman by day to an acquiescent nymph by night.
She styled her hair, put on make-up and donned a slinky nightgown for Johnny. She patiently crouched down to take off Johnny’s boots before she poured him a glass of wine. One time, Johnny kicked off his boots himself and Amber told him: ‘No. That’s my job.’
In the autumn of 2013, the couple stayed at the Corinthia, a grand, five-star hotel overlooking the Thames in London, while Amber was filming London Fields, an adaptation of the novel by Martin Amis.
In a move that even took Amber by surprise, Johnny got down on one knee. ‘I want you to be my girl, be my girl for ever,’ he said. ‘I promise to make you smile at least once a day, every day.’ Amber beamed and said yes to his proposal: ‘I felt like the luckiest woman in the world.’
Johnny’s assistant Nathan Holmes learned of the engagement the next day and couldn’t believe it: Johnny and Amber had had a huge argument on the night of the proposal, but Johnny proposed anyway. ‘I thought, ‘Now why have you done that?’ recalled Nathan.
He compared Johnny and Amber to two magnets that couldn’t be pushed all the way together: they repelled each other. Nathan developed stress hives and blamed the condition on their relationship.
In December, Johnny gave Amber a $100,000 five-carat diamond ring. In March 2014, the couple hosted an engagement party – apparently at Amber’s insistence. They arrived at the venue, a 1920s villa in LA, with their arms around each other’s waists. Neither acknowledged the screams and pleas of the paparazzi.
Johnny wore a black suit and black brimmed hat, while Amber exuded old Hollywood glamour in a baby-pink silk camisole and black satin skirt. Her hair was worn long like Veronica Lake.
Inside, they posed for photos with friends and said a few hellos. Then Johnny disappeared. He spent most of the evening in a ‘green room’ upstairs, receiving guests including Marilyn Manson and artist Banksy. Amber entertained her friends downstairs.
Johnny’s old pal, fellow actor Sam Sarkar, was there with his girlfriend, Kris, who noted that Johnny looked different – unwell. He should look happy, she thought – he was newly engaged with a beautiful young fiancee.
But he looked like a shell of himself. Sam had a sinking feeling. ‘It started to become more sinister. She was pushing for the wedding to happen in a certain timeframe.’ They mingled for a while, then went home. There had been no dinner, no toasts, no speeches.
In the coming months, Johnny and Amber’s relationship remained unsettled. Close friends and family weren’t sure a wedding would even happen.
On May 24, 2014, they flew to LA from Boston, where Johnny had been filming Black Mass, a movie in which he’d played an American crime boss. On board his private jet, Johnny got so drunk he passed out in the bathroom. In a recording taken by Amber, he could be heard moaning.
A series of texts the following day corroborate that something combative took place on that flight. Amber said Johnny was jealous of her working with actor James Franco on the movie The Adderall Diaries. Johnny accused her of having an affair and, according to Amber, he kicked her in the back and she fell over.
Johnny would later testify that he’d been drinking on the flight but the ‘kick’ Amber spoke of was actually his attempt to tap her bottom with his foot – a playful gesture to say, ‘Hey, c’mon, let’s get past this’, and defuse the situation. He said there’d been no physical violence and that in fact he’d locked himself in the bathroom with a pillow and slept on the floor to avoid her.
Johnny’s drink and drug use was out of control, alarming his agent. Johnny was a one-man industry on whom dozens of people were financially dependent, but he was frequently late to set and didn’t learn his lines. He wasn’t bringing in the same money he used to.
Addiction specialist David Kipper was called in and diagnosed Johnny with a series of conditions, including ADHD, dopamine imbalance, bipolar and secondary depression, but Johnny had just started filming so a total detox would have to wait: meantime he would be maintained on the drugs he was habitually taking – Roxicodone, a highly addictive opioid painkiller and Klonopin, a sedative.
Amber texted Johnny saying he had a demon in him: ‘Seeing such a beautiful thing as our love slaughtered right in front of my eyes and not being able to do anything about it. That is who I am running from, that demon.’
Within a week, they were in love again. When filming on Black Mass wrapped, Johnny headed to the Bahamas to begin a full detox. He was scared to go off drugs and alcohol, but Amber and his nurse, Debbie Lloyd, were there to help him through.
According to Johnny’s later court testimony, even though he was being treated by Debbie, Amber would intervene. He claimed she’d withheld medicine even when he was on the verge of a seizure, one of the ‘cruellest things that she has ever done’.
According to Amber, he’d wanted to quit the detox and in the end thanked her for getting him clean. A text from Johnny to Amber’s mother, Paige, seems to back this up: ‘There is no luckier man on this earth to have the strength that Amber gives me. I don’t need to explain the horrors to you… you know as well as I [Paige had struggled with substance abuse herself]. What you do need to know is that your daughter has risen far above the nightmarish task of taking care of this poor old junkie. Never a second has gone by that she didn’t look out for me or have her eyes on me to make sure that I was ok.’ He signed it ‘Your son out-law.’
In September 2014, less than a month after finishing the detox, Johnny was filming Alice Through The Looking Glass in London. Nurse Debbie, who had travelled with him, wrote in her notes that he and Amber had a ‘nasty freakout’ and Johnny requested some ‘f***in’ knock out yum yum’ from her, in the form of prescription Neurontin and Seroquel. She described his knuckles as bloody. Johnny told her he’d punched a white board in the kitchen after their fight.
The next month, while still in London, he filmed scenes for Mortdecai, a comedy in which he played an eccentric art dealer. Debbie noted that one day after filming, Johnny was ‘extremely agitated’ and kicked in the door of his trailer and refused to speak to the director. He was also ‘verbally aggressive’ to someone on set ‘for no apparent reason’.
Johnny’s periods of true sobriety are difficult to track and it’s unclear what being sober meant to him. After he returned to LA, Bruce Witkin saw him at his downtown penthouse.
‘Johnny was smoking weed,’ Bruce recalled. ‘I’m like, ‘Are you sober if you’re smoking weed? Are you sober if you’re drinking?’ That’s not sober.’
In November, Debbie described Johnny as ‘hyper focused’ on his relationship issues and suspicious of Amber. ‘He feels she is not being truthful with him and he is not sure how to confront her about this when she arrives home.’
At the time, Amber was in Georgia filming Magic Mike XXL. She stayed out until 5am at the wrap party, which deeply rattled Johnny, according to texts with Debbie. ‘The lies are so clear now… They are making me NUTS, wondering WHAT WAS SO INTERESTING TO KEEP HER THERE THAT GODDAM LONG???’ He concluded his text with: ‘Help…??? I don’t know what’s real and what is paranoiac jealousy!!!’
Meanwhile, Dr Kipper had referred Amber to a psychiatrist to manage her anxiety. In an email from one doctor to the other it was said that the couple’s fighting had been spurred by Johnny asking Amber to sign a prenuptial agreement.
Kipper described a flight to Japan in January 2015, in which the couple fought bitterly and openly, complete with ‘thrown coffee, attempts by him to storm the cockpit, attempts by her to leave the plane while they were over the f***kin’ ocean etc.’
If they married without a prenup, Amber would be entitled to 50 per cent of Johnny’s earnings from then on. Johnny’s friends suspected she was determined to marry before he filmed the next instalment of Pirates Of The Caribbean. Johnny agreed to get the prenup, then dropped it and announced he was getting married anyway.
Years later, Amber would allege that by the time of the wedding, Johnny had already slapped her on the face on several occasions, once hard enough to spray blood from her mouth onto the wall; had shoved her several times, once onto a glass table; had kicked her in the back; had pulled her around by the hair; had given her a bloody nose; and had sexually assaulted her.
According to her, they were locked in a poisonous cycle. He was an out-of-control addict and rabidly jealous of other men and women, constantly accusing her of cheating. After turning violent, he’d sober up and promise never to do it again, pouring on the love. He denies ever hitting her and maintains that she was the one attacking him.
The couple’s first, legal, wedding, was a hastily arranged gathering at Johnny’s mother’s house in LA. As they drew up outside, Malcolm, Johnny’s Scottish bodyguard, took him aside. ‘Do you really want to do this?’ Malcolm asked. ‘No man, I don’t,’ Johnny replied.
Johnny had a look on his face that said it all. ‘Get back in the truck,’ Malcolm said. ‘We’ll f***ing drive to Vegas and we’ll talk about it in Vegas, and we’ll f***ing face the music after. Get in the truck.’ But Johnny wouldn’t get in.
‘No. No, I can’t. I wouldn’t do that.’ And with that, they turned and walked inside.
The marriage was solemnised by Maria Kharlash, owner of Instant Marriage LA. The singer Patti Smith said a few words. As Amber repeated her vows, looking into Johnny’s eyes, his mother muttered something unforgettable. ‘She don’t love him,’ Betty Sue said venomously, loud enough for everyone in the small room, including Amber, to hear.
Four days later, the guests started gathering on Johnny’s private island.
According to assistant Stephen, 90 per cent of the guests were Amber’s friends and family. He’d asked Johnny if he wanted to invite Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter, or any other close friends aside from Bruce Witkin, but Johnny appeared embarrassed and told him he didn’t want to invite anyone. ‘It was very clear whose party it was. It didn’t feel like a mutual enterprise in any way,’ Stephen said.
After the ceremony, the party was held in the replica cantina from The Rum Diary, all dive-bar chic, filled with beachy knick-knacks and lit by neon signs. Johnny and Amber’s first dance was to When I Get My Hands On You, a ballad written by Bob Dylan. They held each other close, looking into each other’s eyes. At the end of the dance, Amber held her fist up to Johnny’s face and pretended to punch him, smiling.
Later that night, sitting next to Gina Deuters, wife of Johnny’s assistant Stephen, Amber leaned in and asked her: ‘Do you and Stephen ever fight?’
Coming as it did on Amber’s wedding night and finding the question both bewildering and concerning, Gina replied: ‘I mean, no, not really.’
Amber grabbed Gina’s arm in emphasis. ‘No. No. Gina. I mean, like… really fight?’
Adapted from Hollywood Vampires by Kelly Loudenberg and Makiko Wholey (Mudlark £25), to be published July 31. © Kelly Loudenberg and Makiko Wholey 2025.
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