Amber Heard — Direct

[STAGE DIRECTION]: Witness called on behalf of the DEFENDANT AND COUNTERCLAIM PLAINTIFF, having been duly sworn by the clerk, testified as follows:

MS. HEARD: Yes. It's Amber Laura Heard.

MS. HEARD: I live in Napa Valley, California.

MS. HEARD: I am 36. I just celebrated.

MS. HEARD: I do. She also celebrated her birthday recently. She's one.

MS. HEARD: I am an actor, mostly.

MS. HEARD: I am here because my ex-husband is suing me for an op-ed I wrote.

MS. HEARD: I struggle to have the words. I struggle to find the words to describe how painful this is. This is horrible, for me to sit here for weeks and relive everything here, people that I knew, some well, some not, my ex-husband, with whom I shared a life, speak about our lives in the way that they have. This has been one of - this is the most painful and difficult thing I've ever gone through, for sure.

MS. HEARD: Yes.

MS. HEARD: Well, I was not party to that lawsuit. I was a witness, I suppose the primary witness, since it dealt with the truth of the relationship that I shared with Johnny.

MS. HEARD: I had to write - I think I gave seven witness statements under oath, testimony. I sat on the stand for four days under mostly

MS. HEARD: I come from Austin, Texas, a small town ,3 outside of Austin that you probably haven't heard ,4 of - no one has - called Maynard, and I was raised by my mother and my father and I grew up with a little sister, although I have a big sister as well.

MS. HEARD: Her name is Whit, Whit Heard.

MS. HEARD: Whitney and I are about one year, I think we're 16 months apart, so right next to each other.

MS. HEARD: My father broke horses and did construction, had - he painted houses and hunted ! 19 and fished, but that was for fun.

MS. HEARD: She worked for the State of Texas.

MS. HEARD: Just got to stay on, basically.

MS. HEARD: I would help him I was more of a crash test dummy. You know, when you train a horse, it's a wild animal, it doesn't necessarily like to be ridden. And there are people out there who are crazy enough, like my dad, to pick that as a profession, I guess, and he was really good with horses, and I was the son he never had, so it was my job to, you know, stay on.

MS. HEARD: Well, with training the horses, I guess the key - the key things are to not show fear, not get intimidated, not show fear, be tough and calm

MS. HEARD: I worked any job that I could from the time I was really young. I wanted to get out of Texas and do something with my life and see things and do things. So I was in school and really pushed myself to -- I just always pushed myself to be able to accelerate the process. I wanted to, you know, get out of school as fast as I could, and I wanted to do -- I wanted to do more things with my life than stay in Texas.

MS. HEARD: I was a scholarship kid at a Catholic school growing up, several different Catholic schools. But they were always in the other -- you know, on the other side of town in the wealthier part of town, and I grew up quite working class. And thankfully, you know, as long as I maintained an A average, I enjoyed the benefit of a scholarship, and I did that until I realized that I could take my GED and SATs early, and I did that and placed out of school and effectively left school at 16 years old, I believe.

MS. HEARD: I took any job that I could. I worked at my father's construction company, sometimes, you know, just administrative stuff. I mean, it was a small company. But I answered phones and I worked at, like, a modeling agency that was also, you know, offered photography classes, makeup classes, hair -- hair and makeup classes for people that were pursuing a career in entertainment, and I started taking classes that I paid for by working there, effectively as a trade.

MS. HEARD: And I eventually worked there long enough to be able to pay for my headshots, which are the pictures that you use in the industry to promote yourself, you know, in whatever, acting, modeling, or both.

MS. HEARD: It started off as a requirement for the ' I school I went to, and then I liked it so much I I think because it meant I wasn't at home and it was important to me just to not spend time at home. And I -- I really loved meeting people, so I worked at the soup kitchen every morning before school during the school year for about four years. There were -- I didn't go on weekends. But on weekends I would do various things, worked at children's, like, children's museums, typically, because I would work with younger volunteers, and mostly soup kitchens and things involving children. I worked with deaf kids for a while and, yeah, I love it.

MS. HEARD: Well, I taught myself how to sign basic sign language, and then I -- I pursued it. I audited a translation course at the community college which I ended up going to to get out of high school early later on, but I would audit classes; the teachers never wanted to kick the, you know, random 12-year-old out of their class, I suppose. So I remarkably was able to audit, I think, the majority of two semesters, and that also helped me learn.

MS. HEARD: I used -- I met -- I did a small job in Texas where I played a part in a movie, and the actor in the movie that I was playing opposite had an agent visiting him from LA. And I met her on set, and she said that she had heard about me from another bit part I did. You know, I was taking jobs in Austin for, really, anything, to be an extra, to apply -- I did makeup once. You know, nothing -- no job was too small for me, so I put myself out there.

MS. HEARD: And she had heard about me, and she said, "I have heard about you in this town, I would love to meet you in LA if you're ever out And I was, like, "When can I come?" And she made an appointment with me for the following week, and I used all the $180 or something to get out there, and that's - I landed; I didn't know anyone. I was 17. And I have effectively been there ever since, I suppose.

MS. HEARD: I went to every audition, every casting, every meeting, every appointment that I could. I put myself out there. I didn't have a car because those are expensive, so I took the bus around LA. It was before smartphones. I had a Thomas Guide in my bag and the change of tank tops, not that it mattered. But I went to about ten auditions, sometimes, a day and would change clothes if I needed to in the back of, you know, the bus I was taking, and I just hustled from one audition to the other. And I got a bit part on one thing, and then I got a bit part on another thing.

MS. HEARD: And then eventually my roles kind of y y became more important or bigger, and it's been a slow progression, I guess, since then, you know, of doing either tiny bit parts in bigger movies or doing, you know, larger roles in movies that no one would see. And I guess, you know, it still is kind of like that.

MS. HEARD: Yeah, that's fair.

MS. HEARD: I did small roles in big films, like Zombieland and Pineapple Express, and movies that were well known. My first one was Friday Night Lights. But, again, I had small roles in those bigger films. And then I would do larger roles in kind of smaller films, like I brought -- I did a project where I was the lead in a John Carpenter film, and he came out of retirement to do that. And that's kind of just how it was in terms of my career for those initial - that first initial ten years or so. It was just going from slightly bigger role to slightly bigger role and just working my butt off.

MS. HEARD: Yes. I auditioned for that in about I 11 2008, I believe.

MS. HEARD: Well, I auditioned a few times, which is common in my work. You know, you get a callback, as they say, and I think I had at least one, maybe two, callbacks with the director, and then I got a call saying that Johnny, who at the time, was - I think I knew that he was producing it as well - was doing a project that was something very personal to him. He was reprising his role as his late friend Hunter S. Thompson, and it was a very important project to him and that he wanted to meet me in person.

MS. HEARD: I thought I would be going for maybe an audition, but it was just a meeting. I went to IS his office and met with him for a few hours.

MS. HEARD: We talked about books and music, poetry. We like a lot of the same -- we liked a lot of the same stuff, you know, obscure writers and interesting books and pieces of poetry that I hadn't heard anybody else reference or know or like. And he was very well-read and charismatic, and, you know, I think I left the office with a few books that he gave me. And we spent the whole time just talking about things that we care about, and I was -- I was so surprised that somebody, you know -- I knew who he was. I wasn't familiar, you know, I wasn't a fan of his work.

MS. HEARD: I wasn't familiar with him, but I knew who he was. You know, he's one of the most famous people in the world. So it was already a weird thing to go and get called into his office and, you know, I'm a no-name actor. I was 22, I think, and I thought it was unusual. It was weird because he's - he was twice my age, and he's this world-famous actor and here we are getting along about obscure books and we were, you know, old blues. I thought it was remarkable. You know, I just hadn't really - I thought it was unusual and remarkable. I left there just feeling like, wow.

MS. HEARD: Yes. A few days later, my agent said that "Johnny's going to call you. We gave him your phone number."

MS. HEARD: I was like, "Oh, okay."

MS. HEARD: And shortly after, my phone rings. I pick it up and I hear, you know, this, like, deep voice on the other line, and he said, "You got the - you know, you're it, kid. You're the dream. Hunter wrote this part, and you're the dream. You're it, kid." I was amazed.

MS. HEARD: Well, it was my understanding that he was bringing to life a -- his late friend. And what he told me was that this character is supposed to be the dream woman, like the dream, American dream. And so I knew what he meant. He indicated to me, when he told me I got the role, that I was that, you know, he -- I was the dream kid. That's what he said.

MS. HEARD: Yes. I'm not quite sure how much -- I think we started filming in maybe March of 2009.

MS. HEARD: We shot it in Puerto Rico.

MS. HEARD: It was a bit surreal. You know, filming in a place like Puerto Rico, it was beautiful. It takes place in the '50s, so everything really looked beautiful, you know, cars and clothing, the music. It was just- it was a very colorful shoot in general.

MS. HEARD: I couldn't have asked for, you know, a better scenario. I was on film - I mean, I was on set reading my books, and occasionally Johnny would talk to me. And then he started to be really kind to me, like, more open with me. When we'd have hot days filming, you know, there'd be this big SUV pull up, and a security guard would kind of usher me into this car and it would have the A/C blasting, and I'd be sitting in the back of the SUV thinking what a strange experience the whole thing was.

MS. HEARD: And, you know, we didn't really have a whole lot of interaction on set until - until we did a scene that involved kissing. We had a kissing scene, and it didn't feel like a normal - it didn't feel like a normal scene anymore. It felt - it felt more real. There are certain things that you do in the job to be professional, like when you have to do that sort of scene, and you don't, like - you don't use your tongue if you can avoid it. There are certain things that you do to just maintain a certain line, and it just felt like those lines were blurred. I mean, he grabbed my face and pulled me into him and really kissed me. But we were filming a scene.

MS. HEARD: Yes.

MS. HEARD: I did. I celebrated, I think, maybe my 23rd birthday there.

MS. HEARD: Well, we were already kind of talking about books and poetry and things like that. He gave me a few very beautiful poetry books, and he gave me a bicycle, like a vintage bicycle, because at the time I was riding around on a bike. And I had a lot of time off since I was a smaller role in the movie. And, yeah, I think that was it.

MS. HEARD: Yes. I think there was -we would hang out if, you know, after - or in between scenes or in between setups, we often were, you know, talking about things and would continue the conversation into the trailer, often with the director, Bruce Robinson was his name. And then at one point we'd talk about wine. That's another thing that Johnny and I shared in common, a love for wine, red wine. And we were talking about a kind of wine that I enjoyed, and I was, you know, going on about how great this bargain wine was.

MS. HEARD: And I didn't understand, you know, how much more sophisticated Johnny's taste in wine was. So I was going on about the virtues of Malbec or something, and I bought him a bottle of this wine and I set it down. And at some point I'm going back to get back to set, and he kind of kicked his, like, you know, foot up in the air and basically kind of lifted the back of my bathrobe up and--

MS. HEARD: Because I was doing a scene. It was a period film, so it took place in the '50s. And so I had all of this old undergarments that were for that time era on. And the scene involved me changing. So I had all the costume on. And he kind of picked up the back of my robe with his boot, and I kind of turned around and, like, laughed, like, giggled, you know. I didn't feel -- I just didn't -- like, I didn't know what to make of it at the time, and it just kind of --I just kind of giggled and batted away playfully. And he kind of playfully kind of pushed me down on this, like, bed sofa.

MS. HEARD: But that was in his trailer, just playful and flirtatious, and he said, "Yum," and he kind of lifted up his eyebrows like that (indicating). And I just giggled, laughed it off, kind of batted him away, you know, I moved on, went back to set.

MS. HEARD: I was.

MS. HEARD: That was my understanding, yeah.

MS. HEARD: We just had this, you know, it was a friendship, flirtatious thing. I felt chemistry. I felt this other thing that was - that went beyond the pale of my job for sure. Johnny clearly felt that way about me, had indicated to me that that's how he felt in many different ways. But at the same time, you know, we were both in relationships, and it's a job and, you know, it was intimidating. I just remember feeling kind of intimidated and a little nervous about that, and I also was in a relationship. So we went our separate ways, and we didn't hear - I didn't hear from him for a long time.

MS. HEARD: A few months is my best guess.

MS. HEARD: We had no contact until Johnny called me on the phone one day and I was driving, and he invited me over to his home in California, in Beverly Hills. And I- I mean, it was out of the blue. I didn't even have his phone number, so it was quite unexpected. He called me a second time, but I - I don't think we actually connected or we didn't stay on the phone because we didn't - well, yeah, we didn't really speak.

MS. HEARD: But the first time was the only time I actually spoke to him, and he invited me over to his house under kind of the - he said that, you know, we could get Bruce, who was the director, to come over, something about the movie. But it was clearly not about the movie, if you know what I mean. It was -- so I said, "My friends are in town, and I'm busy with that," and kind of hung up feeling really startled, you know. I didn't know what else to do.

MS. HEARD: He sent me several gifts. He sent me a beautiful dress, one that I wore in the movie, with a beautiful handwritten note, said "Happy wrapping," and made a reference to the dress being wrapping paper.

MS. HEARD: He sent me a few gorgeous expensive what I can only assume are expensive collectible books items And then when I was away filming on a different you know a different job he attempted well he did send me some guitars I know one delivery I was informed about one delivery my partner at the time intercepted the attempt to deliver and called me immediately and said What should I do And I said, "Send it back." And she did. She indicated that there was - at the time, that there was another one that had already previously attempted delivery, and it was also rejected. We sent it - I sent it back because I wasn't there and I wouldn't have accepted it anyway.

MS. HEARD: We - I got a call for the Rum Diary press tour in the fall of 2011.

MS. HEARD: I'm an actress, not a mathematician, for a reason. But roughly, yes.

MS. HEARD: You take a movie once its completed and if it doesn't have distribution you as part of the promotion of that movie you go to these various places normally cities like London or New York and you do press events in those cities to kind of promote the film And you go place to place talking about the film

MS. HEARD: Yes. I had just -- I was going -- I had just finished going through the process of a separation from my former partner, and I was moving and going through that. Then I got a phone call saying, "Remember that movie you did in Puerto Rico? Well, they want you for the press tour."

MS. HEARD: And I said, "Well, perfect timing." And we did that, I think, October, late October 2011.

MS. HEARD: Well on the first stop of the first stop the beginning of the tour was Los Angeles where we both lived and we did a press day, normal press day. And then at the end of it, I was invited by Johnny to come up to his room to have a drink with him and the director of the film. And I went up to the room to see both him and Bruce, but as soon as I got there, Johnny said Bruce wasn't going to make it.

MS. HEARD: So I stayed. Johnny and I started talking. I told - he asked me about my relationship. I said, "Well, you know, I'm going through it- I'm going through the separation right now, and it's been, you know, a rough couple of months, but that's normal." And he said, "Well, the same with me. You know, it's been" - I can't remember exactly how long it had been, but that he had split from the mother of his kids and said that he understood.

MS. HEARD: Then we drank red wine and continued to talk, and the talking became us, you know, reconnection was almost instant It was just chemistry, it's hard to explain that, but we sat on the couch and we talked and, you know, it felt like there was - it felt like there was an electricity to the room. And that's how I felt when I was alone with him anyway. And it was instant again. I was like, "Woah." So on the couch, we talked, finished the wine, and then I got up and left, and as I went to leave, he grabbed both sides of my face, similar to what he did in Puerto Rico when we were filming that scene, and he kissed me and I kissed him back.

MS. HEARD: Well, then we fell in love. And we went on this press tour, and we went - it was - . it was a beautiful and strange time. And we went from - we were flying from one - not together, but, you know, going from one city to the next, Europe; New York; Los Angeles, as I said, and we're just traveling around, talking about this movie that we did together that we participated in g p p together. And we were falling in love. I mean, it was just, you know, at the first dinner in London, he sat me - you know, he produced the film and was a part of controlling the film and was responsible for different things and I was, as a small - as an actor having a small part in it. And we went on this press tour, and I think in London, he sat - had me sat next to him at a dinner, and then we ended up spending a night together in my hotel room. And for the rest of the press tour, we were - it was on. I'll put it that way.

MS. HEARD: I don't know exactly how long it lasted. I think, you know, there were press engagements in this city for a few days and then another city for a few days. And then there was a break, and then there was another press opportunity, I believe. So it was kind of spread out over, maybe, a month, if I'm guessing.

MS. HEARD: Well, once we were back from the press romance, kind of just, like, in these beautiful places all over. We were falling in love, not able to really show it because he wasn't -- the world didn't know about the split between he and his former partner, and of course, as a woman, I was like, "Is that troubling?" You know. And I would ask him, you know, he swore to me that they hadn't even shared a bed for a year, but they were protecting the kids and not publicizing it, you know, or not making it known to the press. And so we had to be a little bit under the radar.

MS. HEARD: Not a little bit. We had to be really under the radar. Because as Johnny pointed out, that the world would blame me and call me a home-wrecker, even though I had nothing to do with it.

MS. HEARD: So we were dating, and then, you know, it was beautiful. It was -- I felt like this man I knew me and saw me in a way that no one else had. I felt he understood me. I felt he understood where I came from. I felt like -- I felt that, like, when I was around Johnny, I felt like the most beautiful person in the whole world. You know, it made me feel seen, made me feel like a million dollars. And that kind of feeling where, you know, just lavish gifts and lavish expressions of love and how he had never met a woman like me. And, I mean, I remember he took the foil off of this bottle and put it on my ring finger. And I had only been with him, like, days, you know, or maybe it was weeks at the time. You know, it was probably about a few weeks, but it just felt very intense. But we weren't doing normal life stuff. We weren't, like, stuck in traffic with each other. We weren't going to the grocery store and doing life. We were, like, hiding in these places around the world. He had a lot of -- he had so many homes. And so we'd be in one of those homes or my home at the time. And it was like a bubble. Like a - we were in this little bubble of secrecy, and it felt like a warm glow, as we would say, just music and the kind of books that we both loved and poetry that we both knew by heart. And it was - it felt like - it felt like a dream It felt like absolute magic.

MS. HEARD: Yeah, sorry.

MS. HEARD: Yes.

MS. HEARD: Yes. So shortly after, you know, I think we started dating October of 2011, and so, you know, as I mentioned this bubble, you know, where he'd come over to my house and not leave for, like, three or four days, you know, just, you know, smoking cigarettes and playing music and reading poetry to me or painting me, you know, just talking, and then he'd disappear.

MS. HEARD: And there would just be no way to get ahold of him, no way to contact him At first I didn't really think anything about it. But he disappeared at one point and then came back and said he was dealing with something, some health issue, and would I join him in the Bahamas. And that - I think that's when I learned he had an island, and I was on a trip with a friend of mine in Spain, and I - it was for the holidays, and I kind of rerouted my trip so I could come and land in LA instead - I mean landing in Miami instead of LA so I could go and meet him on the island.

MS. HEARD: And he had Keenan come and meet me on that trip, like, in Miami; I get off one plane, get onto another, and go and join him on his private island. And I noticed he was drinking Beck's and tea, like, lots of tea. Like, lots of tea.

MS. HEARD: And I didn't foolishly think anything of it. I just, you know, thought the man really seriously - I missed it before, but really, y really loved tea. And we had this beautiful, I don't know, less than a week, probably, trip in the Bahamas, a private island, beautiful, sandy beaches. It's a scene that you just don't - I had never experienced anything like that. It was a beautiful place, a beautiful time. And we I fell - I fell head over heels in love with this man.

MS. HEARD: Yes, that's correct

MS. HEARD: What I always do. I would be taking job to job to job, going from one movie to the next, mostly not filming in LA. So weirdly, you live in LA to go shoot on location in other places. So when I was in town, we would go back to this bubble, like, into a bubble with beautiful, blaringly loud music, and no one else and nothing else. And then, you know, I'd go off to work, and so would he. Well, eventually, yeah, he left to shoot Lone Ranger, I believe.

MS. HEARD: That sounds right. Mid 2012, yeah.

MS. HEARD: I was shooting ...

MS. HEARD: I believe I was shooting Machete Kills in Austin. I had a small part in a Robert Rodriguez film that shot in Austin. I think Johnny was shooting and then having some time off, and there was just a lot of travel, a lot of movement, so ...

MS. HEARD: Well, he was filming all over the Southwest, and at some point, I came to visit him and on one of his locations. And I would stay in the house because I couldn't really, you know, occasionally I would leave with his security guards, but I didn't really have anything to do but visit him for a few days. So I'd cook and kind of stay at home and paint or whatever and wait for him to come home and have dinner ready, and it was - we would have these little bubbles, but kind of scattered throughout the Southwest as he was filming.

MS. HEARD: And at the time, Johnny had, you know, when I first arrived at one of these locations, it was the first time that Johnny told me that he had had a health issue, something with his liver, and that he wasn't - that's why he was not drinking. He was drinking a lot of tea, like, a lot of tea.

MS. HEARD: Well, I mean, I suppose that I took off his boots, and it made an impression on him and I was happy to. You know, anything I could do to show love, certainly how I felt about him. But if he wanted to take off his own boots, he certainly could.

MS. HEARD: Johnny had a thing for turquoise, and that eventually, you know, being in the Southwest it happens really- it can happen really quickly. I also, too, really love turquoise. And he has a - he loved knives. He loves a lot of things. When Johnny loves things, he does it a lot, lots of it. So he had these daggers that he had given me. Really, they were beautiful in design, and they're, you know, long, curved, daggers, and he just talks a lot about knives, had a knife and gun collection, and was quite proud of it And at some point, I don't really remember exactly when it was, but at some point, I picked up what I thought was a really beautiful turquoise-handled knife, and I had it engraved with a saying that Johnny would say to me all the time, which I - you know, thought was romantic, as funny as that is to say now.

MS. HEARD: "Until death," "hasta la muerte," in Spanish.

MS. HEARD: Oh, well, starting way early on, Johnny was so kind, so generous to my family, but especially - especially my mom and dad. He just really - he met my dad, and my dad's a big personality; he's a rowdy guy. And Johnny just all of a sudden, I had never noticed, you know, Johnny have a Southern -- all of a sudden Johnny had this Southern accent. It was really like buddy-buddies with him, and they really seemed to get along very well. You know, just, like, instantly he was giving my dad gifts; he gave him guns. He gave him knives. They had this -- I mean, Johnny just really just showered my dad.

MS. HEARD: And my dad's a working man, you know, salt of the earth guy, and he was just, like, floored. He's getting all these amazing gifts and being invited to come onto these locations, and, you know, Johnny's this big movie star and my dad was just like, you know, I think my dad would have married him himself if I hadn't. And he just instantly -- he gave my mom jewelry. He brought her out to come and see me while I was visiting Johnny on Lone Ranger in some part of the Southwest; I think it was Colorado. He gave her this beautiful turquoise necklace, and, I mean, yeah, they were -- they were definitely taken by him.

MS. HEARD: I believe the relationship came a little bit later as they got to know each other. But he did the same thing with my sister and just really found a bond with them that, you know, was -- it was -- you know, he tried to do anything and everything he could for -- to make them feel, like, special. And they did, you know, my mom, my dad, and my sister.

MS. HEARD: Johnny's so generous and can be this really, like, overly generous, almost, you know, like, showering you with gifts and compliments and just, I mean, like, you know, and he has access and means to really, you know, we're not talking about give you a card. We're, like, talking about just these, like, extravagant trips or these extravagant gestures. And it's a lot. He did that with my close friends. I relied heavily on my friends and had a pretty strong support network with them. And he really just showered, showered them with generosity and love and, like, invited them to come to these exotic places and flew people here and there. I mean, he was incredibly, incredibly generous.

MS. HEARD: Johnny, at one point, insisted on buying me a horse, and I, of course, said, "That's extravagant. There's no way I could accept that." That's - also, "How will I take care of that horse?" You know, just so extravagant. So I said no, of course. Eventually he got ahold of my dad and worked it out with my dad what kind of horse to buy and then showed me a picture of this horse and said, "It's yours. It's coming here." I think it was being transported, and he said, you know, that he had my dad's help on it. You know, I grew up on my dad's horses. I grew up riding with my dad. So, you know, I went - I had resisted for, I think, about a month and a half or something of him kind of bringing up the idea and me saying, "That's a crazy gift No, thank you. No. That's incredibly generous, but I couldn't accept," to all of a sudden I had a colt.

MS. HEARD: It was always intense. It didn't become intense; it almost started that way. I when I was with him, you know, I I felt that electricity in my body. I felt like, like butterflies couldn't you know I couldn't see straight practically. I was just you know head over heels in love. And he felt like that to me. He felt like he was also in love. I didn't feel like he was faking it. I felt like what we had it felt like to me at the time there wasn't any I I love like that you know I mean and then he would he started to kind of do this thing again where he'd disappear and he'd come back And I remember at first he would when he first is started drinking I didn't really think much of it But all of a sudden the behavior kind of started to go in line with the disappearing and he'd come back and he would just be different And I would say something, and he'd accuse me of saying something else or saying it in a different way. Or he would -- it was mostly my clothing at the time and me working, that was the main thing. Like, I found myself trying to not talk about auditions because it was -- it would change the mood so dramatically.

MS. HEARD: I tried to you know he would make these comments about you know whoring myself out but do so in the context of me acting you know and he would talk about other actresses who do my role in this way where they were worthless whores and that they were you know fame-hungry expletive expletive just the point is it felt really dirty to be an actor never mind that he was one It was more it was dirty that I wanted to do this job that I wanted to do and I was doing the job of an actress It was everything I every time I was walking out of the house he would ask me That's really what you're wearing kid Oh I see You know, I wore a dress to an event once, and I felt - I felt beautiful in it. Stupid as that sounds, I felt pretty in this dress I picked out, and I showed him because I -you know, it's a carpet, red carpet, so it's like, you know, publicized, and I kind of thought it was weird he didn't-wasn't saying anything about it. You know, I left him to go do this red carpet, and I was like, "Did you see the, you know, the event I went to, you know?" Basically, I felt pretty, and I thought, like, "Did you see that?" You know, I wanted him to say something about that, I guess.

MS. HEARD: And he said Well this is after he stopped talking to me for some time didn't tell me why When he came back in my life he wouldn't explain why he was acting different He just kind of acted mad at me I didn't know what I had done wrong And when I brought up the dress and the event because it was an event to support a charity I was really involved with at the time and I said You know did you see that thing And he said, "Yeah, yeah. I think the whole world saw that, kid. That's how they'll remember you. That's how the world will remember you."

MS. HEARD: I was, like, "Oh, come on, I mean it's like what -- you know, I felt good in it. I felt good."

MS. HEARD: And he said, "Yeah, kid. That's what you're putting out there in the world. No one will ever forget that, and that's all they'll see you as, and that's what you wanted. That's what you're going for."

MS. HEARD: You know, my dress was low cut; I get it, low cut. But I felt, you know, I felt really embarrassed and horrible that I wore that. I felt like, "How could I have made that choice? Of course, you know, he's right." You know, you start to believe it. I started to believe that that made a lot of sense, of course.

MS. HEARD: But it didn't stop with that. It was just - it was clothing in general. When I walked out of the house, it was never - it wasn't just like, "Hey, you're not allowed to wear that." It was like, "Oh, really? That's what you're wearing. No wonder. No wonder you get cast in those roles. No wonder you - that's what you are. That's what you're making it." And it just - you know, it continued. And then, there would be a blowup. And at first it was just throw something, smash some things. He loved to smash up a place, an apartment, furniture.

MS. HEARD: That's what it started with, glass, threw a glass at me in I remember it was summer. And he just threw this glass across the kitchen. It didn't hit me, but it shattered behind me, and I remember thinking that it, like, very easily could have hit me. And that, calling me a whore. It didn't start with using the whore word. It was just comments until it would escalate, and then I started to notice the pattern of escalation where'd throw a glass or turn over a table. Then he would hit the wall really close to my head, you know, like when I'm standing there, you know, he'll just hit the wall, screaming at me.

MS. HEARD: But then he would disappear and get clean and sober, and he'd come back and tell me that he had - he was done drinking; he was over it. He was done, cleaned himself up. He had done it before, and he'd do it again. And then he would go back to this, like, wonderful, like, almost like just unreal, like, but real, you know, but unbelievably nice, sensitive, kind, warm, generous, interesting, funny man that I loved.

MS. HEARD: 18 And he would make me feel so loved, I like it would get - I would feel so distant from that thing that it was so scary that I would not even recognize it. And that was how, you know, our relationship started to develop in that year.

MS. HEARD: Yes.

MS. HEARD: It was so -- it's seemingly so stupid, so, like, insignificant. I will never forget it. It changed -- it changed my life. I was sitting on the couch, and we were talking. We were having a, like, a normal conversation, you know, just there was no fighting, no argument, nothing, and he was drinking. And I didn't realize at the time, but I think he was using cocaine because there was, like, there was a jar, a jar of cocaine, out on the table. I realize that sounds weird, but it was, like, an actual vintage jar of it. But I didn't see him use at the time, so I didn't really factor that in.

MS. HEARD: I just, you know, he's drinking and we're talking and there's music playing and he's smoking cigarettes, and we're sitting next to each other on the couch. And I asked him about the tattoo he has on his arm. And to me it just j looked like black marks. Like, I didn't know what it said. It just looked like muddled, faded tattoo that was hard to read. And I said, "What does it say?

MS. HEARD: And he said, "It says 'wino,"' and I didn't - I didn't see that. I thought he was joking because it didn't look like it said that at all, and I laughed. It was that simple. I just laughed because I thought be was joking. And he slapped me across the face. And I laughed. I laughed because I - I didn't know what else to do. I thought, "This must be a joke. This must be a joke." Because I didn't know what was going on. I just stared at him, kind of laughing still, thinking that he was going to start laughing too to tell me it was a joke. But he didn't.

MS. HEARD: He said, "You think it's so funny? You think it's funny, bitch? You think you're a funny bitch," and he slapped me again.

MS. HEARD: Like, it was clear it wasn't a joke anymore. And I stopped laughing, but I didn't know what else to do. You know, you - I - I didn't know what to do. You would think you would have a response, but I, as a woman, had never been hit like that. I'm an adult and I'm sitting next to the man I love, and he slapped me for no reason, it seemed like, and I missed the point. It was that stupid.

MS. HEARD: Second slap, I know he's not kidding, but I don't know what else to say or do, so I just stared at him. I didn't saying anything. I didn't react. I didn't move or freak out or defend myself or say, "What are you doing? You're crazy." I just stared at him because I didn't know what else to do. And he slaps me one more time, hard. I lose my balance.

MS. HEARD: At this point, we're sitting next to each other on the edge of the couch -- or I was on the edge of the couch, and I'm all of a sudden realizing that the worst thing has just happened to me that could possibly happen to you. I realize that -- I wish so much he had said he was joking. Because it didn't hurt, didn't physically hurt me. I was just sitting there on the - on this carpet, looking at this dirty carpet, wondering how I wound up on this carpet and why I was never - why I never noticed that the carpet was filthy before. And I just didn't know what else to do. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know how to react. I just sat there thinking, "How much time do I have till I figure out what I need to do because, God, did he just hit me?

MS. HEARD: No, I didn't want to leave him. I didn't want this to be the reality. I didn't want to have the man I was in love with - I know you don't come back from that. You know, I'm not dumb. I mean, you can't hit a woman. You can't hit a man. You can't hit anyone. You can't just hit somebody because they- I knew there was no - I knew it was wrong, and I knew that I had to leave him. And that's what broke my heart because I didn't want to leave him. I thought if I could get out of that room, I would leave the best thing that happened to me.

MS. HEARD: And I wish I could sit here and say, "I" stood up and I walked out of that house and I drew a line and I stood up for myself," but I was just looking at the dirty carpet, trying to will myself to get up, to walk out of the door because I knew I needed to, and I- really slowly, I stood up, and I remember looking at him in the eye and just looking at him, frankly, because I didn't know what else to do.

MS. HEARD: And before I know it, he starts crying. O And, you know, like, I had never seen an adult man cry. I didn't really see my dad cry at my grandma's funeral, you know. It's weird. And he's crying, tears, I mean, just falling out of his eyes. He gets down on his knees, and he grabs my hands and he's touching my hands and he's saying to me, "I'll never do that again. I'm so sorry, baby. I put the fucker away. I thought I killed it, and it's done. I thought I put the monster away, and I've done it before. It's done."

MS. HEARD: But on his knees. And I - I didn't have words. I didn't know what to say. I just y j remember thinking that it was just he was crying. He seemed so sorry, but I knew I couldn't forgive him, right, because that means it will happen again, no? You know, like, I've seen the health class videos like everyone else.

MS. HEARD: And I got up in my car. I walked to the car. I didn't say anything. I made a point to not say, "Oh, it's okay," or anything like that. I just didn't say anything. I got up. I went to the car. I sat in my car, and I felt like I sat there forever. I didn't want to turn the key. I just leaned my head up against the window, and I remember just seeing my breath on the windshield, you know, on the glass of the window of the door, just seeing my breath and trying to will myself to have the strength to know what I should do in this moment because I was heartbroken.

MS. HEARD: And I sat there for a long time, and I eventually turned the key and drove home.

MS. HEARD: I don't know. I don't remember what I I w did when I got home. I don't remember.

MS. HEARD: I went to my therapist. I told her -

MS. HEARD: I went home and I, a few days later, I started getting - I actually don't know how many days later, but I start getting calls and texts from Johnny, you know, apologizing profusely. I mean, just, you know, he was just- he said, "I'd rather cut my hand off than to ever lay it on you or lay it upon you." You know, and he had that way of talking, it felt like poetry. And he showed up to talk, like, with the understanding that, you know, he understood I could never forgive him and it was done. So I felt kind of safe in saying, "Okay.

MS. HEARD: Let's have a talk, or yeah, we'll talk." I think I - I know I just wanted to see him And he comes over, brings me gifts. He brought me a couple cases, actually, of that Vega Sicilia wine that we've heard about, which is a really nice, expensive wine that I could never, at that time, dream of affording, you know. And we talk and he tells me that he had put this thing away, that I could trust him, that it would never happen again. Of course, it would I never happen again, that he had put this thing away. He killed the fucker is what he said to me over and over again. "I put that fucker away. I killed that monster. I'll kill it again. It's all done. I'll never lay a hand on you again." And I wanted to believe him, so I chose to.

MS. HEARD: Yeah, I did. I - I believed it. But, you know, I believed it wouldn't - I believed that there was a line he wouldn't cross again, and that was it.

MS. HEARD: Yes.

MS. HEARD: I don't -- I don't know how long it was until things got bad again. He did start drinking again. I remember the -- it was almost -- you know, he started drinking again, the disappearance thing, the coming back. He would come back, like, in the middle of the night to my house, and it would be unclear to me, you know, drunk, often really drunk and kind of accusing me, but not directly. Nothing was very direct; it was a lot of accusations, but they were veiled. You know, what I was wearing, who I was with, why didn't I text him back if I didn't text him back right away.

MS. HEARD: This is when I was at my place in Orange.

MS. HEARD: Sometimes he would show up to catch me, as if that was a pretext for coming over. And by the time we were done talking, we'd be -- I would have thought I'd convinced him that I loved him, that I only loved him, there was no one else, and then that we were back in an upswing and it would go back to good, loving, like, sick romantic love, like, kind, sweet, velvety love.

MS. HEARD: And then it would be something I said. "Why did you say it that way?" You know, if I had to leave for an audition, I could guarantee that when I -- couldn't guarantee, but two of those in a row, and when I came back, he was angry at me, you know. And I wouldn't necessarily know why. And he started accusing me of things. At first it was indirect, and then it became really direct. And then the punching of the walls next to my head, which is a constant at the -- at that time in 2012 when he was drinking.

MS. HEARD: Eventually, that became, you know, him accusing me of cheating. I'd defend myself. I'd say, you know, "That's crazy. You're wrong. I would never," the normal things. And they would escalate to the point where he would push me or shove me down, and then I'd get back up. And this happened several times; that's why it's not more specific, I suppose. When I'd get back up, I'd look him in the eye. I made a point of getting up and looking him in the eye. That's my way of defending myself at that time. And I'd look at him, and he would ask me if I wanted to go again and shove me back down. Eventually he just hit me.

MS. HEARD: I remember he hit me in the face when I denied having an affair with my ex-wife, my ex-partner at the time. And he said he had proof. I denied it. I was walking out of the bedroom, He slapped me across the face. I turned to look at him, and I said, "Johnny you hit me. You just hit me."

MS. HEARD: Yes, I do.

MS. HEARD: It's a picture of my face with a note that Johnny left for me by the coffee, typically is where we'd leave notes like that.

MS. HEARD: It was one of those scenes I - as embarrassing as it sounds now, I don't know what scene this came from. There was a lot. It escalated quickly, fast, and it became - s

MS. HEARD: Thank you.

MS. HEARD: Yes.

MS. HEARD: So in 2012, the violence was pretty, you know, relative to what it became, pretty, you know, a slapping, a backhanding. Well, it went from this eggshell kind of you're walking on I S eggshells, nothing you're doing is kind of right, but you don't know what you're doing wrong. And then I was doing something wrong clearly, but they were -- it was unclear within the scope of an argument what I was defending myself against. So it would shift from a rumor he had heard that I was with my -- a friend or I had been photographed standing too close to a male person.

MS. HEARD: That was a person that I have a -- I had had something with and I was lying to him about. And it would be eggshells, accusations, accusations, and then he would explode. It started with throwing things, destroying of property, and screaming at me.

MS. HEARD: I remember the screaming at me was the worst because I kind of always felt like I had done -- you know, I had to defend myself. I had to tell him so he didn't think these things were true, and sometimes, you know, he would shift [1 accusations. While I'm trying to dispel one accusation, he'd start another one, and nothing I could do to calm him down, it seemed like I'd walk away, and that would make it worse. I remember in my apartment in Orange, he would grab me by the hair, or he'd grab me by the arm, face, pull me into him, scream at me that way. He'd smash things around me that he could smash, things very close to me, and then he would just hit me. And it started with slapping, and it got to be, like, repetitive slaps where he'd hold me in a position and slap me multiple times in a row.

MS. HEARD: Then it would be, you know, eventually I later would even push him off of me, or I'd try to hit his hands away from me. Not in so much, at that time, I was mostly -- my defense was -- I'd go some other place. Like, I don't know how to describe that. It was I'd focus on something else, I'd stand up, look at him, h) to stand up to him that way. Later I adopted other kind of strategies to deal with it. But in it would have this blowout, and then he would leave, disappear, and he would -- I'd be committed to not talking to him; I'm done with this relationship. I can't take it anymore. I said that so many times. And then he'd come back, clean and sober, telling me he had a chip. He didn't have any chips, but he would say, "I've gone to meetings. I have a sober companion now. I'm doing this program. I'm reading this. I'm doing this," and he was done with drugs and alcohol for good this time.

MS. HEARD: And he'd come back in my life, and with the combination of him being sober and having gone through this horrible thing where I felt like my heart ripped out of my chest, you know, like a relationship ending is hard, but ending under that circumstance is really painful. And when he'd come back, it would almost feel like a solve, a solution to that. And it would feel great, and we would be good again and it would be -- he'd be extra nice and extra apologetic and extra loving, and we would be back p g g in the good bubble, the warm glow.

MS. HEARD: And eventually he'd get bored, and then I'd see him drinking again. When I started to get upset, noticing the pattern of the violence going with the drinking and drugs, then he started sneaking it. So it became less clear, and I'd have to look for clues as to what he was on. So I just knew how to react, you know? Johnny on speed is very different from Johnny on opiates. Johnny on opiates, very different from Adderall and cocaine Johnny, which is very different from quaaludes Johnny, but I had to get good at paying attention to the different versions of him.

MS. HEARD: 2012, I was in the beginning stages of this, just learning these patterns. I was just learning that drinking kind of correlated with the violence.

MS. HEARD: Yes, I did.

MS. HEARD: I told my therapist. I told - I Ito eventually told my mom.

MS. HEARD: I think I - I felt safe talking to my mom because I knew that she understood these dynamics, and she wouldn't judge me for staying with him, for loving him, even though this was happening and was happening to me. I knew she would understand.

MS. HEARD: I -- well, I was confiding in her from the very beginning about the abuse, the psychological abuse, the kind of control, the disappearing, the not knowing where he was, the then he'd come back and sometimes in the middle of the night, the constant accusations, like that sort of thing, I talked to her about, like, probably, from the very beginning.

MS. HEARD: The fact that I was secret, I had to hide, couldn't tell any of my friends that I was with him for a long time because he told me everyone would blame me for the split with him and his partner, so I had to kind of sneak around and kind of get brought to his house, typically in a secretive way, and then he'd come to mine in a secretive way.

MS. HEARD: And it was just all very -- very isolating. And I confided with her at the very beginning on that sort of thing and then later opened up to her about some of the violence. I did it gently, you know. First I just wanted to have someone to talk to about how scary it was, you know, the rage and the uncontrolled violence, the rage that this man had, and why it just -

MS. HEARD: Of course.

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MS. HEARD: I remember it was after a period of really -- it was after a period of some peace and sobriety. Johnny was sober, drinking Beck's. And my dad, who was struggling with alcohol and drug addiction at the time, had fallen off the wagon, and I remember he said, "Why don't we send a -- I want to send a picture to your dad of support," because my sister was upset with my dad. And so he poured a shot and kind of said, "Let's take a picture.

MS. HEARD: I don't drink spirits, but I know that, you know, I kind of held up -- and that picture is kind of eerie. I think it's bizarre. He had broken this long period of sobriety that I thought was going to be the end of him drinking forever. Sounds foolish now, but I, you know, held up this kind of glass with him, and we sent the picture to my dad because, you know, I didn't know what else to do. And I remember thinking it was weird that he was drinking.

MS. HEARD: And then the month got really crazy from that point on. It was a bit of a revolving door of accusations. He was accusing me of having affairs with, well, frankly, just one person. I y j p was an acquaint -- I had an acquaintance with somebody, and he was accusing me of being with them and then accusing me of being with my friend, the one I had seen the Spain. You know, in these kind of arguments, nothing I do is working.

MS. HEARD: Walking out of the room is me leaving him, walking away from me, you know, "Hey, where are you going? I'm talking to you," it went from that to pulling me in by my arm, still shouting at the -- about the accusations. I'm trying to defuse the situation by trying to tell him I'm not sleeping with this person, and I'm not sleeping with that person. And it was kind of -- as soon as it seemed as though I had convinced him of one, there was somebody else he was sure I was sleeping with. And it was a revolving door at the time.

MS. HEARD: Painting I had hanging on the wall done by my ex, who's an artist, that was -- one day he was convinced that that was proof I was sleeping with her or having an affair with her; I didn't really love him. All the while, I'm madly in love with him and trying to convince him.

MS. HEARD: So March started with this picture of him doing a shot, and he's kind of saying, "Let's send it to your dad to show support." And what I I remember of March is just like an almost -- it's is almost like it was a never-ending fight. It was just there was just breaks in it. What kept me in it because I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know, the sobriety shoe, if you will. I kept waiting for him to get to the point where it's not supportable anymore and he's done with it and he's ready to get clean and sober again because there commences a period of, like, pure joy. And it was one fight after the other, March.

MS. HEARD: As I mentioned, the painting, which had been hanging there for months, one day he kind of stayed up doing cocaine, just drinking, doing cocaine, music, which is not in and of itself that I weird in my relationship with Johnny at this j y p y i point, you know, like, he stays up, keeps weird hours and smokes and stuff. But he was drinking brown liquor and doing a lot of cocaine, and it It was, like, it became clear to me in that argument, if you will, that he wasn't making sense. He had effectively just taken, it seemed like, a turn and had decided that the painting was the big - an offense that he could not forgive me for. It meant that I was having an affair with my ex-partner, whom I had already split-with whom I had already split. It made no sense to me, so I'm trying to kind of quell the accusations by saying, you know, "It's been there.

MS. HEARD: And what are you talking about? And it's like, "That doesn't mean anything." Like, he was demanding I take it down. He eventually takes it down and tries to burn it, but was unsuccessful luckily because he was not - he wasn't - with one of those normal, what do you call them? BIC lighters. He wasn't very successful at doing it while drinking to the extent he was. But I remember it was this kind of ridiculous fight. It didn't feel like it needed to be an argument, but it seemed like nothing I could do, nothing I could say. I tried leaving. I left the room. I left the house. I eventually came back. It was like a whole night of - an evening, a night, and then a morning of this.

MS. HEARD: So this morning in particular, I think it was, like, the 22nd of March - there were several incidents in March, though. But in this particular one, he had something to go to. He was filming with Keith Richards and Tom Waits.

MS. HEARD: I do.

MS. HEARD: It's Johnny texting me.

MS. HEARD: There were, like I said, there was a few different incidents in March. I believe this one happened in the Eastern Columbia Building, which is one of Johnny's penthouses there in downtown, so a different part of Los Angeles. And we would sometimes go there. I remember he was accusing me, again, of sleeping with this artist -- this musician, who ::e:::: :::::t:n: :::nd::y:: tc:s:;ee of sleeping with my friend in Spain. And I remember nothing I could do, he, like, called this person on the phone and screamed at -- screamed at him. He didn't speak English, so he was really confused as to what he was being yelled at by Johnny. But I remember those were the accusations. That was the fight that -- but it was one to the next accusation. And I remember I was kind of doing that juggling act.

MS. HEARD: I was in his -- one of these fights, I believe it's this one, in his downtown ECB, we call it, loft, and we're in the kitchen/living room area, and he backhands me. And, you know, it was -- you know, he wears a lot of rings. I remember kind of just feeling like my lip went into my teeth, and it got a little blood on the wall, just that simple, a little bit of blood on the wall. And as hard as it is -- as hard as it is to explain this, I was so caught up in the relationship and also very occupied in defending what I only could assume he believed, these accusations, that, you know, I didn't -- I didn't internalize. Like, I didn't make that big of a deal of it. You know, I kind of pride myself on being tough, and, you know, I don't make a big deal out of, you know, smaller injuries. And I know that sounds horrible because it -- and hard, maybe, to understand.

MS. HEARD: But my best way to cope with it is that I kind of, you know, minimize it and make -- make sure no one -- make sure he knows that I'm tough. You can't knock me down, and I make a joke of it, clearly. Make light. Yes.

MS. HEARD: Yes. This is sometime in March 2013. I sent it to her because I had been texting about some of the craziness, and I -

MS. HEARD: I was reaching out. I was very lonely O in what I was living in, and I wanted help. I wanted advice, help. I just wanted to talk to somebody and figure out how I could make this stop.

MS. HEARD: I did.

MS. HEARD: I was -- I had thrown a -- well, Johnny slapped me. I walked away from him, and that made it worse. We got into, like, a shouting match, and he kind of did this thing with his body where I could tell he was going to hit me again. I picked up a, like a -- I remember it kind of like a -- like a little -- not a pot, but like a vase, and I remember I got away from him enough. As he reeled back, I threw it in his direction and actually managed to get away before he got -- before he got me. He grabbed me by the arm, and he kind of just held me on the floor, screaming at me.

MS. HEARD: I don't know how many times he hit me in the face, but I remember being on the floor in my apartment, and I'm just -- I remember thinking, "How could this happen to me again?"

MS. HEARD: Yes, it is.

MS. HEARD: Yes, it is.

MS. HEARD: Yes, it is.

MS. HEARD: Yes. It was from a previous fight.

MS. HEARD: The bruise.

MS. HEARD: Yes. We had a couple of these fights in Orange that were around this time, one of which I started to tell you about the painting.

MS. HEARD: Sorry. Orange was my apartment that I kept in Los Angeles at the time.

MS. HEARD: I rented the top of a duplex. So it was a house and with the landlord living on the I bottom floor. I rented the top floor.

MS. HEARD: I -- nothing I could -- it seemed like nothing I could say to Johnny would convince him. He wanted me to remove the painting, and he wanted me to admit to this affair that I wasn't having. And I didn't want to admit to it because it's not true. So I held out, and he just started -- I w In mean, he just drank more and did more cocaine.

MS. HEARD: And I woke up the next morning, think it was on the 22nd or the 23rd, I woke up in the morning, and he was -- the breakfast table was, like, cocaine and booze, and I realized that there -- that I wasn't going to be able to talk my -- like, I wasn't going to be able to talk our situation down. I wasn't going to be able to talk him out of it. And he was just so convinced that I would -- fighting with him or the reason that he wouldn't leave the house. And he had something to go film. It was important, and there were important people waiting for him.

MS. HEARD: And I remember people were reaching out. His assistants, his manager/sister, you know, everyone was wondering where he was, and I was kind of -- I kept feeling embarrassed and unable to move this person out of my house. I couldn't calm him down. I couldn't change. He was just so intent on me admitting the details of this affair that I wasn't having, and me pointing out that the cocaine wasn't making his situation any better, it made me the bad cop. And I'm the nag. So eventually I called my sister. He had kind of a buddy-buddy relationship with her at the time. And at the time she occasionally did cocaine.

MS. HEARD: I didn't, but she did. So I was like, "Hey, come take over. You know, maybe you can buddy-buddy him and talk him into leaving the house, getting out of the house." And she did.

MS. HEARD: I remember his assistants trying to get him out. Like, we, eventually, in the evening, I think early evening, he finally agrees to leave, but I can't tell our relationship status. I can't tell if he still is convinced of these things or if he's going to sleep it off and it's going to go back to normal, sobriety, sorry, kind of phase.

MS. HEARD: And he won't -- was still upset but, like, seemingly calming down. So I agreed to go with him. He wanted me to go to the shoot. I had plans, so I kind of reluctantly agreed but didn't want to set anything off. I didn't want to engage anymore. I didn't want to do anything that could be perceived as antagonizing him or engaging more. So I went with him. We grab the dogs. We get in the car. We're on the way there. We're headed up Sweetzer is the street, the major street that leads up to Johnny's houses. He effectively owns the ends of the street, like a cul-de-sac.

MS. HEARD: So we're nowhere near his home, but we are driving up this street and he had the window down, he's smoking. It wasn't all the way down, but, you know, constantly smoking. And at some point he starts howling out of the window and then grabs, we have two small dogs, well, one was Johnny's dog, and one was my dog. But he grabs, if I remember correctly, Boo, the -- his dog, slightly chunkier teacup Yorkie. And he grabs this teacup Yorkie and holds Boo out of the window of the moving car. And he's howling, like, like an animal while holding the dog out of the window.

MS. HEARD: And everyone in the car, I'll never forget it, everyone just froze. No one did anything. And I too was, like, tom as to what I should do because I didn't want to do anything to cause him to react, drop the dog, you know. It was just this eerie moment where he's howling and holding this animal outside of the car window.

MS. HEARD: And more than that weird memory that I have -- more than that weird memory, I have a memory of everyone just kind of not really reacting to him. Like, no one really kind of did anything. They -- I eventually kind of pulled his arms gently back into the vehicle and kind of got the dog back on the seat, and we continued driving. But no one reacted. They just kind of avoided dealing with it. We get to the place, the house where he was filming this thing that he was I late for, I suppose, for the day, and we walk in. Meanwhile, I've been bombarded by text messages and calls and conversations with everyone seemingly so stressed about -

MS. HEARD: All right. I understood everyone was stressed. They seemed stressed to me about the tardiness. "Where is he? Let's get him there," you know? So we'd get him there. And no one reacts when we get in, I mean, we walk into this house where everyone was waiting for him, and everyone smiled and says, you know, "Hey, boss."

MS. HEARD: Yes, I do.

MS. HEARD: It's a picture I took of my breakfast table that morning.

MS. HEARD: Yes.

MS. HEARD: That's Johnny's drug box. I've seen it used for pills, but at the time it was a box of coke, like dime bags of coke.

MS. HEARD: That is cocaine.

MS. HEARD: Yes. They're different -- actually it's confusing. They're different liquids. The one in the back in the larger glass is, I believe, at the time I was doing these tabs of Berocca is what they're called; they're little tablets, and, anyway, I remember at the time that that's what I was putting in my water because I'd just come back from France, where they sell them. And then the brown liquor in the glass is Johnny's liquor. I don't know what it's called, but we kept it in the freezer. At the time, you know, at that time, March 2013, I hadn't, you know, I still didn't have the, you know, hard line, "I won't even keep that, you know, in my freezer," sort of attitude or posture with him. I wasn't that bold at the time. You know, I didn't like it, but I didn't have that strength I kind of, at that time, I think, was doing things like trying to pour it out when I could

MS. HEARD: That's a dop kit. It's, like, you know, his prescriptions and cigarettes, tobacco, weed, things like that.

MS. HEARD: Yes. It's the single, I believe is what it's called, the single he was making at the time. I think that's the song that they were filming a video for, if I'm correct.

MS. HEARD: I did. I sent it to my best friend at the time, and, you know, I was like, "Look at my morning."

MS. HEARD: Uh-huh. I sent it to my friend.

MS. HEARD: Yes.

MS. HEARD: Yes.

MS. HEARD: It is a - it's a, like a fancy trailer park, like a little hotel in the middle of nowhere, set up with these little trailers. And we had made a plan to go there with friends, and we were going to do, you know, like, laughy, as we said, laughy drugs like mushrooms, eat mushrooms, sit by a campfire. There's really not a whole lot else to do out there. It's like a getaway.

MS. HEARD: We made this plan and it was going fine. It was like, you know, kind of like a party out in the desert with a few friends and campfire and music, and I don't know who brought -- somebody brought MDMA, it was being passed around, and somebody who took it kind of was starting to feel the effects of it, I guess is the best way to describe. She kind of reacted in this way where when the MDMA hit her, she kind of, you know--we were sitting around a campfire, all of us, and she kind of leaned into me and put her, you know, head on my shoulder and kind of grabbed my arm.

MS. HEARD: I took it, you know, to be the effects of the drug.

MS. HEARD: And I think I had eaten a mushroom cap but was not feeling anything at the time. I don't remember feeling anything because the night just kind of changed pretty dramatically before I really felt anything of the effects of that. But that was the environment we were in, and as soon as she kind of did this thing where she leaned into me, Johnny gets really aggravated. He gets really upset, and he starts - well, at first she thought he was kidding, too. She thought he was kind of making a joke. I think we all did. Everyone kind of responded at first, you know, like it was a joke.

MS. HEARD: But he was like, "Hey, man, what are you doing? What do you think you're doing?" She kind of giggled and kind of leaned into me more. And I knew in my body, just instantly, that it wasn't a joke. But she didn't. So she's kind of still attached to my arm when he says it again to her, louder. He says, "Hey, man, you think you're touching my fucking girl? You think you're touching my fucking girl? That's my fucking girl." He gets louder and louder.

MS. HEARD: And she kind of did this thing, half understanding what was going on. I think she kind of started to cry at this point But she kind of threw up her hands, and Johnny grabbed her wrist and kind of twisted it and pulled her into him. Do you know how many pounds of pressure it takes to break a human wrist? Huh? And he kind of held her, and she just looked frozen.

MS. HEARD: And she's crying, and it was just -- just denying understanding what was going on, I stepped in. I kind of take Johnny's aim around him, take Johnny's hand and kind -- we start Is communicating. I don't remember if he immediately was accusing me or if it was sometime after. I wish I remembered. But we agreed that we'd go and ill talk about it in the trailer.

MS. HEARD: So we walk to the trailer, and when we're in the trailer, Johnny -- by the time we get into the trailer, Johnny tells me that I had been instigating the -- like, you know, asking for this, and that I had invited it and that I hadn't been honest with him about my relationship with this woman. I didn't really know her that well. I mean, I actually don't know her at all, but I had met her.

MS. HEARD: And I remember in the trailer, he's accusing me of lying about it and that I -- you know, that I had something with her. I'm trying to defuse that. I'm trying to calm him down. And he just turned all that -- it seemed like he turned all that rage onto the trailer itself, and he started smashing things. He picked up something on the table and threw it right into the glass cabinet. He hit, with his hand, a wall sconce. He cleared the tabletop on the little fold-down, like, kitchen/dining room area in this trailer. I mean, it's a trailer. There's only so much you can do.

MS. HEARD: And he's screaming at me, screaming at me. And I eventually go back into the back, the bedroom area. He comes into the bedroom area. We had what I can only describe as a -- it sounded like nonsense from him. It wasn't making sense. I realize that he's just probably really high because it wasn't making sense anymore. It wasn't like a direct accusation. He wasn't hearing me when I was saying I wasn't involved, wasn't cheating on him, I wasn't secretly trying to engage this woman in some sort of sexual affair. And then it became clear to me he was, like, looking for something. He cleared things off the bed.

MS. HEARD: I went into the bathroom, and as I come out, he asked me where it is and how long I'd been hiding it.

MS. HEARD: "'I was like, "What are you talking about?"

MS. HEARD: And he says, "You know what I'm fucking talking about. You know what I'm fucking talking about. Be honest with me. Where are you hiding it?" And he kind of, like, makes to look into the bathroom, and I gestured to the bathroom, which was to my right. I kind of like gestured to him, and I said, I'm like, "What am I -- where am I going to - what am I hiding and where am I going to hide it?"

MS. HEARD: And we're standing in this hallway area outside of the bathroom, and he starts, you know, what feels like patting me down or saying he's patting me down; I can't recall. But he ripped my dress, the strap top part of my dress. I had just dyed this thing myself, pink. And this was one of those things I was like, "Fuck. You know, that's my - I just finished that dress."

MS. HEARD: And he's, like, grabbing my breasts. He's touching my thighs. He rips my underwear off, and then he proceeds to do a cavity search. He was looking - he said he was looking for his drugs, his cocaine, his coke. I was wondering how I, somebody who didn't do cocaine and was against it - that was in and of itself causing problems in our relationship. How can I hide - why would I hide his drugs from him? Like, he was insinuating I was doing it or something. It made no sense.

MS. HEARD: And he was telling me, "We're going to conduct a cavity search, shall we?" like, just shoves his fingers inside me. I just - just stood there staring at the stupid light. I didn't know what - you know, I didn't know what to do. I just stood there while he did that. He twisted his fingers around. I don't - I didn't say, like, "Stop," or anything. I just ...

MS. HEARD: I remember thinking that Johnny would change his mind, and it would be -- yeah, I thought it would end differently. I kind of froze. I don't know how we went to bed that night. I don't know how I went to bed. I don't know how I slept. I don't know how I woke up. I don't remember having a conversation with him the next day. I don't remember talking to him about it or confronting him about it. I remember wanting it to be okay.

MS. HEARD: I remember just wanting whatever weird trip to end, you know, just to go back to normal. And I remember my friends were out by the pool. Like, there was a pool in the center of the trailer park, and I remember putting on my face and going back into this crowd, you know, and I remember seeing my friends by the pool, thinking they were just having a great time and no one knows.

MS. HEARD: Everyone was just having a good time, you know, like normal stuff, so I just smiled, made a joke about how trashed the trailer got, and we had to get the manager, who started off furious that Johnny had wrecked the thing. And then he had this, like, black mesh tank top -- not tank top; it as, like, a meshy kind of shirt on. I remember he came in the trailer and looked around and was like, "Whoa. What happened here? Whoa."

MS. HEARD: And Johnny had an exchange with him, and I remember watching this man be so charmed. It was just kind of a surreal experience, and, you know, it just went away. You know, that just got fixed. We walked out of the trailer at some point. My dog stepped on a bee. We went to the vet and went on with our, you know, vacation. We actually went to another location after that and then eventually went home and went about our, like ...

MS. HEARD: I - by June, I was so torn. I was so in love with this person because when it was good, it was so good. I'd never felt love like that. At least that's how it felt. I loved him so much. I felt like he recognized me and I recognized him, and there was just something there that - that he was the love of my life. And he was. He was. But he was also this other thing. He was also this other thing. And the other thing was awful, awful things that would come out and take over, and it was - you couldn't see the Johnny I loved underneath it.

MS. HEARD: It was this other thing, and no one told him No was honest with him No, you know, he'd pass out in his own vomit. He'd lose control of his body, his, you know, he'd lose control, and everyone would clean up after him I cleaned up after him. I mean, he lost control of his bowels, and I cleaned up after him His security cleaned up after him, changed his pants in front of me. ' He would pass out in his own sick. You know, and then he'd walk around saying he didn't have a problem, until he did, until he couldn't support it anymore, and he'd get clean and he'd get sober. And then he was this thing again, this thing that made me feel so loved, that made me feel like -- like my soulmate. As cheesy as that sounds, I just felt like he knew me.

MS. HEARD: And I recognized something in him, either some part of my makeup or my background or something, that I just got it, and that I loved him and understood him. It just so scary, the other part of him. In June, I wanted -- I wanted to leave him. I wanted to -- I didn't want to leave him. I -- I wanted to want to leave him. I wanted him to get better. And he expressed to me so many times, when he was in that period of getting clean and sober, he would tell me, "You saved my life. Baby girl, you saved my life." Everyone else was saying that to me, and I believed it.

MS. HEARD: You know, if everyone else was saying

MS. HEARD: It, he was saying it. I thought, just like his other friends who gotten clean and sober and stayed that way, his older friends, these rock stars that he hung out with that had, like, gotten clean and sober, and they had had 20, 30 years, something. You know, I thought, and Johnny told me he would be that person, that he was going to be that person. I believed it. I had so much - I looked at that man, twice my age, you know. I was 25, looking at this man twice my age, and I saw hope and, like, promise.

MS. HEARD: I had so much hope. You know, the whole thing, kids and growing old together, sort of the hope, if it was just for this one thing that he could do which would save his life, which would be to get clean and sober. And I believed it. And I wrote this letter to myself, among many letters to myself -

MS. HEARD: Because I thought -

MS. HEARD: I wrote a letter because !thought it would be read to him. I could read it to him. I could say it to him in intervention, you know, in help, and he would-- he would later thank me Is for -- as he did, as he used to thank me all the time for saving his life. Just, I.

MS. HEARD: I'm sorry. Yeah. I finally met them in the summer of 2013. I had been with Johnny for over a year, maybe like a year and a half at this point is my best guess. And I was dying to meet them, you know, dying to get to know these kids. I felt like I knew them already. I had his daughter's -- and, actually, and Jack's, both of his kids' art on my fridge, and I had never met them. You know, Johnny brought them over one day and kindly given them to me, and I had them up on my fridge because I felt like I knew them, just, how much he talked about them. And I finally got to meet them at the Lone Ranger premiere, at Disneyland. Yeah, summer 2013.

MS. HEARD: Yes.

MS. HEARD: Oh, well, that was the first and last time I ever decided it would be a decent idea to do drugs with Johnny. I did MDMA with -- or did MDMA with him on the plane, which was as stupid as it may sound. I just had never -- I was very against -- obviously, the cocaine had been a problem. I was very much against him using cocaine. I was against the drinking, supportive of the sobriety, you know. But I'm 26, maybe-ish, and I wanted -- you know, I never heard of anyone making MDMA like what I had-- I had done MDMA before. You know, I thought it's a lovey drug. You know, it's like a kind of - I never knew anyone to get violent on it. And, you know, I thought, "Well, this is a relatively contained environment. Maybe this will be different. Maybe I can be a good cop and be part of the" - you know, like I don't have to be the lesbian camp counselor all the time, as he would say. You know, I could maybe be the fun girlfriend. And I learned the hard way that that was not happening.

MS. HEARD: Well, we took - we took MDMA. I took a capsule, like a powder in a capsule. I took a capsule, and Johnny took several. I didn't count. But, you know, it's very different when you see someone take one versus a handful of something, but nothing that seemed to set any alarm bells off.

MS. HEARD: And things were going fine until the flight attendant got involved The flight attendant came by, was engaging with us. I don't think that there really - it felt like it was ,- ---4-3-07- before the effects of the drug took over. So it was relatively soon after we first took our dose, if you can say, and the flight attendant, Johnny offered her some. She of course says no, and then after some back-and-forth between them, Johnny convinced her that it would be fine. So she acquiesced and took MDMA with us.

MS. HEARD: And within, you know, a few minutes go by, and that same thing happened that happened on the mushrooms at Hicksville with the woman, Kelly Sue, who I've told you about. Flight attendant got friendly with me, but just friendly, just like MDMA friendly, you know, with kind of I'm a woman; he's a man, so she was naturally, I think, more comfortable with me, physically. She kind of leaned into me and kind of sat on the arm of the chair I was sitting in.

MS. HEARD: I mean, after all, she's on drugs, and Johnny grabs her hand and tells her not to touch me. And she kind of reacts in a way, like, you know, like defending herself and was trying to clarify. And he grabbed her by the wrist and I slammed it down on the table and told her he could break her wrist, and I remember thinking, "I've heard this before."

MS. HEARD: And that was a pattern that would repeat itself a few times. These things would happen in these kind of cycles where there would be a certain element that would get filtered for a while, whether it was an accusation or a gesture, and that was the thing he looped on, and I called it loop - loops. And he grabs her wrist, and he tells her he could break her wrist. She cries instantly, denies it, is so apologetic. Eventually he lets go. She goes to the front of the plane where the flight attendant, you know, normally hangs out, and the door's closed and I don't see her much of that whole flight. We land in Russia, and I don't really remember, you know, any- there was - I don't recall any violence on the plane between Johnny and I, but I remember feeling this tension because I was wondering when it was going to aim at me. Because he had this particular thing about -- well, at the time, I understood he had a particular thing, a sensitivity, about me and women because I had had a female partner. So I was feeling nervous, anxious, and I remember we had a very quiet ride, at least I didn't say anything, to the -- ride to the hotel. And almost as soon as we get into the hotel room, Johnny's accusing me of effectively having engaged in that, caused that. I, of course, deny it.

MS. HEARD: I point out what I thought was obvious, that, you know, like we had given her drugs, you know, I wasn't an affair, wasn't -- you know, and I'm trying to argue and defend myself at the same time. And at one point, Johnny just shoves me, like, I mean, shoves me, hard, and I fall back onto this glass table. I catch myself on the table. I don't know how -- some furniture got knocked around. There was a -- you know, I'm trying to stand up for myself. I'm trying to stand up literally at this point. I don't even try to hit back or try to run. I'm in this hotel room, trying to do my best to fight mostly the verbal accusations, but also I try to stay on my feet, you know.

MS. HEARD: At some point, Johnny whacks me in the face. And I don't even -- I don't remember feeling pain or, like, awareness of my nose or anything. I just -- I don't remember thinking that. I remember kind of crying and feeling -- I went into the bathroom, and I wanted him to have a -- like, I just remember wanting him to realize what had happened. I wanted him to kind of snap out of it. I wanted him to care. I wanted him to realize what was going on because a big part of this, I felt like he wasn't aware. There was this sense that he didn't know what was going on.

MS. HEARD: You know, again, I don't know how much of the drugs or alcohol's a part of this, but I remember crying. I came out at some point because I don't hear him in that room. I remember we had been arguing in the main room, but I went out to the hallway, which is where I presumed he walked out, and his bodyguard Jerry Judge was in the hall. I don't recall seeing Johnny in the hallway but I remember seeing Jerry Judge, who gestured to my nose --

MS. HEARD: He gestures to my nose and holds out a handkerchief, like a cloth handkerchief, and I instantly felt -- felt really embarrassed. I felt like -- I felt ashamed. I don't know how else to describe it. It just felt, like, just really embarrassing, and I went inside the room.

MS. HEARD: I had a little blood coming out of my nose. I didn't know it. I didn't feel it at the time until Jerry gave me -- Jerry let me know.

MS. HEARD: And I went inside the hotel room, and as embarrassing as it is, I remember just I wanting - just wanting Johnny to say sorry. I wanted him to realize - it's so stupid, but, like, the emotional part, you know, I just wanted him to acknowledge that this is - like, he could hurt me, you know? And I wanted it to be okay. I didn't want him to think I was interested in this flight attendant. I didn't want him to think that I was capable of cheating on him. I was in love with him. I wanted - you know, I just wanted things to be okay.

MS. HEARD: It was less like a - we flew out to the Bahamas, to his island. He was selling the yacht to J.K Rowling, and he wanted to have a goodbye trip on the yacht, so it was docked off the island And I went with him and his kids, who I had quickly developed a bond with and loved, and we brought a friend along with us, I think, to help, and yeah.

MS. HEARD: Johnny was upset that he had to sell the boat, and he was off the wagon again. But he didn't want to tell his kids, so he was hiding it from them. He was putting it in coffee cups and drinking, and the behavior just kind of like he was upset. He was emotional, and it just, you know, that's how he dealt with it, just drink. But there's just no off button with Johnny. So he just kept drinking, and the behavior kept getting more obviously drunk, and Lily-Rose, his daughter, at the time was young, she was maybe fourteen.

MS. HEARD: And she started to get panicky and asked - started to ask me questions about his drinking.