Johnny Depp — Direct

[STAGE DIRECTION]: JOHN C. DEPP, II, the plaintiff and counterclaim defendant, having been first duly sworn by the Clerk, testified as follows:

MR. DEPP: Okay. Yes, ma'am

MR. DEPP: Good afternoon.

MR. DEPP: Yes. About six years ago, Ms. Heard made some quite heinous and disturbing, brought these certain criminal acts against me that - that were not based in any species of truth. It was a complete shock that it would -- it just I didn't need to go in that direction, as nothing of the kind had ever happened. Though, the relationship, there were arguments and things of that nature, but never did I, myself, reach the point of striking Ms. Heard in any way, nor have I ever struck any woman in my life. And so, I -- at the time, because the news of this -- her accusations had sort of permeated the industry and then made its way through media and social media, became quite global, let's say, "fact," if you will.

MR. DEPP: And since I knew that there was no truth to it, whatsoever, I felt it my responsibility to stand up, not only for myself, in that instance, but stand up for my children, who, at the time, were 14 and 16, and so, they were in high school. And I thought it was diabolical that my children would have to go to school and have their friends or people in the school approach them with the infamous People magazine cover with Ms. Heard with a dark bruise on her face. And then it just kept -- the -- it kept multiplying.

MR. DEPP: It just kept getting bigger and bigger. " So it was my responsibility, I felt, to not only attempt to clear my name for the sake of - well, for many reasons, but I wanted to clear my children of this hard thing that they were having to read about their father, which was untrue. And, also, after many years of being in this industry, at the time, it was probably - I'd probably been in the industry 30-plus years, 35 years, and never had had any problems or anything like that. And I had met many people over the years. Many, many of the people, and had the opportunity to talk to those people and to even give advice to these people.

MR. DEPP: And I'm not - my goal is the truth. My goal is the truth because it killed me that people that I had spoken with, that I had met with over the years, who I - who maybe were in not such a great position and they needed advice, and I gave them the best advice I could, all I could think of was that those people would think that I was a fraud and that I had lied to them.

MR. DEPP: And so, I had to wait for my y opportunity to address the charges, which were criminal charges, and they just weren't true. So I felt a responsibility of clearing the record as the only - the only way that I could get to the point where I could speak. It has really taken this full six years, and it's been six years of trying times. It's very strange when one day you're Cinderella, so to speak, and in 0.6 seconds, you're Quasimodo. And I didn't deserve that, nor did my children, nor did the people who have believed in me for all these years.

MR. DEPP: I didn't want anybody - any of those people to believe that I had done them wrong or lied to them or that I was a fraud.

MR. DEPP: I am - I pride myself on honesty. I pride myself on truth. Truth is the only thing I'm interested in. Lies will get you nowhere, but lies build upon lies and build upon lies. It's too much to cover.

MR. DEPP: I'm obsessed with the truth and, so, today is my actually, the first opportunity that I've been able to speak about this case in full for the first time.

MR. DEPP: As a father, raising kids, you know, when they were very, very little, it was important to me, very important to me, to try to shield my children, as much as possible, from looking at their father or their mom, for that matter, as novelties. I didn't want my children to experience hoards of paparazzi. So I was always a very private person. So, for me to come up here and stand before you, or sit before you all, and spill the truth is quite exposing and it's unfortunate that it's not only exposing for myself, it's exposing for my family, it's exposing for Ms. Heard, it's exposing for - it never had to go in this direction. And so, I - I can't say that I'm embarrassed because I know that I'm doing the right thing.

MR. DEPP: I had a very interesting childhood. One that I felt was normal until a certain age. My mother - I was born in Kentucky, and then we moved - in which we moved around quite a lot when I was a kid, so you were always just - my mom had this - her feet were on fire and she had to move, you know, so we moved constantly. So you were always the new kid, and that wasn't ever particularly pleasant. Then we moved to Florida, South Florida, when I was about seven or eight. And, again, moved several, several times. But my mother was quite unpredictable.

MR. DEPP: She was very unpredictable. She was a she had the ability to be as cruel as anyone can be with all of us, so that is to say my sister Christi and my brother Danny, and my sister Debbie, also my father. So, essentially, she was she could become quite violent, and she was quite violent and she was quite cruel, and she and though there was physical abuse, certainly, which could be in the form of an ashtray being flung at you know, hit you in the head or you'd get beat with a high-heel shoe or a telephone or whatever's handy.

MR. DEPP: So, in our house, there was no - we were never exposed to any type of safety or security. The only thing that one could do, really, was to try to stay out of the line of fire. I started to be able to observe. I could see, I could start to see when she was about to head into a situation where she was going to be riled up and somebody was going to get it. Generally, it was me.

MR. DEPP: Well, the various categories, I suppose, are - well, there's physical violence, of course, there's physical abuse, to which she, p y , I was -- that was a constant. That was just a constant, you know. We were all somewhat shellshocked, you know, even if she just walked past, you'p shield yourself because you didn't S know what was going to happen. Excuse me.

MR. DEPP: And so, there was the physical abuse, which was a constant. There was quite a lot of verbal abuse. There was quite a lot of name-calling, bullying, you know, making fun of IO whatever defect, you know, one might have. My brother wore glasses, so, of course, he was four-eyes, and his teeth were messed up in the front, so he was bucktooth as well. My sister Christi, which this is such a hideous psychological play, my father's parents were quite refined. My mother comes from Eastern Kentucky, which is where you grow up in shacks and hollers, you know, and my mother despised my father's parents.

MR. DEPP: And my grandmother's name was Violet, and every now and then, you would hear my mother scream across the house "Come in here, Violet. Get in here, Violet."

MR. DEPP: And Christi, my sister, knew very well that that was a deep, a deep cut, psychologically, emotionally. But we had to take it. I mean, you just had to take the pain. I was born with a very strange, it was a very rare thing in my eye, as the back of the lens is spherical, normally it's spherical. So this eye isn't normal. This eye, I was born with a more conical lens. So, my brain never learned to see out of my left eye. And they noticed, when I was about three, four, five -- three, four, that I had a lazy eye, a wandering eye, and she would call me cockeye, one-eye, anything, anything she could get to, to demean, humiliate.

MR. DEPP: I even had to wear an eye patch on my good eye to strengthen my bad eye so that it would cease to wander, it was exercising the muscles of the eye. So the brain never really learned to see, so I still, my vision in my left eye is -- I'm legally blind in my left eye. So, yeah, the verbal abuse, the psychological abuse, was almost worse than the beatings. Because the beatings were just physical pain, and the physical pain, you learn to deal with, we learn to accept it, you learn to deal with it. But the psychological and emotional abuse, that's what kind of tore us up, I think.

MR. DEPP: My father? My father was a very kind man. In fact, my father's still alive. He's a very kind man. He's a very quiet man. In fact, he's very shy. Not a confrontational person in any way. And when Betty Sue, my mother, would go off on a tangent toward my father, and, of course, in front of the kids, it was no matter to her, he would -- he amazingly remained very, very stoic and never -- as she was trashing him with horrible things, he stood there and just looked at her while she delivered the pain, and he swallowed it. He took it.

MR. DEPP: There was never a one moment, never a moment where my father lost control and attacked my mother or hit my mother, or even said a bad thing to my mother. The things that I remember was there was a couple of times that it got too far, that I would see his -- I could see his eyes welling up as he was staring at her and saying nothing and the most that he would do is he would punch a wall. I once saw him punch a wall and it would shatter his hand because it wasn't drywall, it was proper concrete and steel wire and rebar and things of that nature. And, but, still, never, never touched her. Never argued with her. He remained a gentleman. To me, as a five-year-old boy, I kept thinking to myself, I kept wondering why, why does he take it?

MR. DEPP: How does he take this and why doesn't he leave her? But he didn't, you know. He was able to maintain his calm and his composure. He was able to maintain his relationship with his children. He was a good man. He's a good man.

MR. DEPP: I mean, out of -- I couldn't count the amount of fights that they had. But I know that 1612-+! I -- I've seen my father strike a wall two or three times, tops. Once when he broke his hand. But two, three times, tops, you know.

MR. DEPP: No. My father was never -- my father was not an abusive man. At the same time, my father was also, to some degree, at the mercy of Betty Sue because if he argued with what she wanted done, and that would just tum into another barrage of hatred towards him. So I can remember my father coming home from work, and maybe I'd gotten a bad report card or maybe I'd gotten in trouble at school or something like that. And my father would arrive home from work, and the first thing she would say was, "John, take him out there. He gets the belt. Give him the belt."

MR. DEPP: And he wanted to know what it was about. So he'd take me out to the garage and I'll never forget this white, thick leather, 1970s era, thick leather, white belt that he would take off, and then he would commence to inflict the punishment on me. But, interestingly, there was one time when my father, I kept telling him I didn't do this. It was another incident. I kept swearing to him that I did not do what Betty Sue -- what my mom had said that I'd done. But he went through with the punishment anyway. And then, not long after, he found out that I had been telling the truth, and that I hadn't done what I'd -- what my mom had said that I'd done, and he came to me and apologized to me for having gone through with the whipping, you know, the belt. I have to say, my mom never did that. She couldn't.

MR. DEPP: She knew what she knew. She was raised how she was raised, and I had no power to change what was inside of her, you know.

MR. DEPP: When my father left, I didn't realize !/20 that he had left. He left -- I was 15. I had already left school and I was a musician, I was playing in clubs and such. And he left for work ' ! 1 one morning, just like every day, and was packing his car, and then he left And then hours later, !

MR. DEPP: My mom, Betty Sue, came home from work, it was about 3:30 in the afternoon, and she walked in the door and stopped and just looked around like she'd felt something, and she just - I said, "What's wrong?" She said, your dad is gone. I said, yeah, I seen him leave for work this morning. She said, "No, no, no, no. He's gone, he's gone." And she ran into their bedroom and into their closet, and I followed her, and she opened the door and there was one, you know, his side, his rack of clothing and all his belongings were gone. And she was quite upset.

MR. DEPP: And I took her car and drove to my father's work and sat down in front of him, at 15, and I said, "Listen, seems as though somebody stole all your clothes out of the closet." And he said, yeah, yeah. He said, I'm done. I can't. I can't do it anymore. I can't live it anymore. You're the man. You're the man now. And those words didn't quite sit well with me. I didn't feel like I was ready to hear those words. But, that's what I got.

MR. DEPP: Then, my mom got very -- went into a very, very dark place, deep, dark, depression, as you can imagine, and she -- one afternoon I woke up, I'd fallen asleep, and I woke up and walked out into the living room, and I saw my mother, like, very feebly, and, like, almost, it was like a slow-motion crawl. If I could stand up, I could show you. Just the -- what I saw -- do you mind?

MR. DEPP: Thank you.

MR. DEPP: And I saw, I saw my mother, you know, in that -- you know, in that mode. So, instantly, I knew that something was dreadfully wrong. And there's drool coming out of her mouth. As I was about to run and call, the front door busted open and my uncle and two paramedics came in and threw her on the gurney and whisked her out of the house to get her to the hospital to pump her stomach. She had swallowed a multitude of pills to try to take herself out. To try to commit suicide. And when she got out of the hospital -- she was a small firecracker of a woman, she was about 5-foot 2, but when she got out of the hospital, the depression was so deep, she was down to, like -- she lived on the couch and she weighed about 70 pounds. And, that, all that imagery spun into my head at that time, that I thought that was a very, in my head, at the time, I thought that was a cowardly way for my father to have left, and I was deeply upset by that.

MR. DEPP: And until my father and I had a conversation, years later, where I asked him, what really happened? How did it happen, when I was older. And he told me the story --

MR. DEPP: I was - I was very disappointed in him because I started to believe that his exit was sneaky, cowardly. He didn't-when he said goodbye to me, when he left to work that morning, he said goodbye, bud. I said, see you later, Pop. That was it. Until I learned the truth from him

MR. DEPP: I learned that I was wrong about my first impressions of his exit from the family, very wrong. And I'll tell you one thing that I learned that was one of the best lessons I believe I ever learned in my life, ever could learn in your life - in my life, was based on my experiences as a child and what I'd seen and experienced, I knew exactly how to raise children when my girl, Vanessa, got pregnant. I knew exactly how to raise children, which was to do the opposite of what they did, of what Betty Sue did. Never raise your voice in front of the children, never.

MR. DEPP: Screaming out the word "no" to them. I never wanted to tell my kids no. I wanted to tell them that - I wanted to show them that there were options. You don't have to stick the coat hanger in the electrical socket, you know. Saying no is an abrupt thing. But to talk to them and say, "if you understand the repercussions of something, then you won't go there. So maybe think about this as opposed to this. Give this some thought," you know. But that will clearly - you know, that could kill you.

MR. DEPP: So I would ease them away from things of that nature with a more - more of - you have a conversation as opposed to a, you know, flat-out don't you ever do that again and threats, and things of that nature. I did not raise my children that way, nor did Vanessa. And we never raised our voices in front of our children, ever.

MR. DEPP: I'm sorry? One more time.

MR. DEPP: Well, in the beginning of my relationship with Ms. Heard, there was - from what I recall, and what I remember, she was - it was as if she was too good to be true. She was attentive, she was loving, she was smart, she was kind, she was funny, she was understanding. I mean, we had many things in common, certain blues music -- well, music and literature, things of that nature. So for that year, or year and a half, it was amazing. There were a couple of things that, I don't know, stuck in my head that I noticed, that I thought might be a little bit of a dilemma at some point. For example, if I -- well, I worked quite a lot.

MR. DEPP: When I would come home from work, I would come in the house, or the hotel, and she would sit me down on the couch and give me a glass of wine and take my boots off, set them to the side, and I'd never experienced anything like that in my life. I just never -- that was -- I just never experienced that before. And it became a regular thing that she did. It was kind of routine. And I remember one night I came home from work, and I think she was on the phone or something, and -- busy, she was doing something.

MR. DEPP: And so I sat down on the couch and I took my boots off, I took one off, and suddenly Ms. Heard approached with this look on her face that - and she just said, "What did you just do? What did you do?" I said, "What do you mean?" ls "You took your boots off.

MR. DEPP: I said, "Yeah, yes, I did. You were busy." "No, no, no. That's my job. That's what I do. You don't do that. I do that." Okay. All right then. And then she said, "Let me get you a glass of wine." And then she brought me the glass of wine. But I did take pause, of course, at the fact that she was visibly shaken or upset that I had broken her rules of routine. I thought that strange. And then, once that - once you notice something like that, then you start to notice other little tidbits and things that come out.

MR. DEPP: And then, within a year or year and a half, she had become this - another person, almost.

MR. DEPP: I ended up acting by accident. I was a musician and I moved out to Los Angeles with my band, when I was 20 years old. And then there were a couple of things that happened where the band split up, and I remember I was filling out job applications with a friend of mine, who happens to be -- he was an actor, less known than he is now, but Nicolas Cage, and I was filling out job applications at any, you know, video stores, clothing stores, anything, just to be able to pay the rent. And Nick Cage said, you know, why don't you meet my agent, you know, because I think you're an actor.

MR. DEPP: I think you could be an actor. I said, I'll meet anybody. I'll do anything at this point.

MR. DEPP: And so, he sent me to his agent, Eileen Feldman, and I met with her. She sent me to read for a casting director named Annette Benson, who was casting a film called the Nightmare on Elm Street, and they brought me back to read for the director, Wes Craven, and I read for Wes Craven and somehow got the job. But, I mean, I was, by no means, an actor. I didn't have any desire to be an actor. I was a musician. But the fact that these people were going to pay me what I found to be a ludicrous sum of money, which was, it was kind of the SAG minimum, it was $1284 a week, which I had never seen that kind of dough before in my life.

MR. DEPP: And so, I suddenly, you know, and I did some others, a couple other dumb movies because, still, in my mind, I was a musician, and this was just a way to pay the rent, pay the bills, live. And then, suddenly, I found myself on that road. I had been placed on that road as an actor, and then one thing led to another, from film to film, and then I was cast in a TV series called 21 Jump Street, when I was 22, I believe.

MR. DEPP: It was fun to me. It was fun to me. But I didn't -- I didn't have any great ambition Is to be an actor. I'm naturally, normally, I've always been quite the shy person. I've also been quite introverted.

MR. DEPP: So there was a very strange metamorphosis from being one of four, that is to say one of four in a band, where you have this fraternity or this brotherhood; and you're out there fighting the world together to try to get that record deal, whatever you're looking for, and when the -- when I got on this series and my life started to change in various ways, that is to say that people started to -- you know, you go into a restaurant and you'd see people whispering and pointing, all that. I was very uncomfortable with it.

MR. DEPP: I was very uncomfortable with it, and I didn't like it, just because it -- I never wanted to be the lead singer and the guy out front and get all the attention, and I didn't -- so, suddenly, I was on my own and I was having to deal with this newfound notoriety. And it was odd. It was very odd, and it was - yeah, it was a very uncomfortable thing. I mean, I don't think it's anything that one could get used to. I'm not - I'm still not used to it now, which I'm actually glad that I'm not used to it. Because if I were, I don't think I'd be the same person that I am.

MR. DEPP: Once I realized that that's the road that I was on, and any attempt at going back to music would be a - would have been - I hated the idea that since the television series had come out and I'd been exposed as this character or this actor, I had to realize, in my own mind and heart, that there was no going back to music because I didn't want to - you know, I didn't want to - didn't want to use whatever amount of success that I had attained from the TV series, and that sort of thing, I didn't want to use that to influence, you know, some career in music. I had far too much respect for music than to just become what they wanted me to become, which was a, you know, teen idol or teen, you know, that sort of thing. I fought that with every thing in my being, you know. Once I realized that music was no longer an option, then I began to study at various places, the Loft Studio, which is now long gone, in Los Angeles. I studied with some other teachers, Sandra Seacat. I read all the books that you could read.

MR. DEPP: And all that was great, but you realize that the only way to -- the only way to learn -- or the only way to learn how to -- it's not act, necessarily, the only way to learn how to react and behave, because it's just behavior and it's reaction, was to do it. It's on-the-job training. It's trial by fire. So I did my best to work up my own approach towards a character and such.

MR. DEPP: I would say-- I would say that the first film that I had done, that I really took-- where I really felt, okay, I've done the work. I know what I need to do, I would say that was - where I considered myself an actor, I suppose, was when Oliver Stone cast me in Platoon, in 1986.

MR. DEPP: Well, that's many years later, but I had been - Disney had offered me a film called Hidalgo. It was about a man, his horse in the desert and stuff. And I read the screenplay, and I just didn't think it was for me. But I wanted to have a meeting with them because I - at that point, I had a two-year-old - yeah, two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, and, so -- or three. And for three years, I watched nothing but animated films, cartoons, from Tex Avery to Bugs Bunny to - that was all I watched with my little girl.

MR. DEPP: And I received the screenplay for Pirates, and it was - somehow, in my mind, I saw this opportunity, like a way to mesh characters, like - like cartoon characters. For example.

MR. DEPP: Wiley Coyote gets a boulder dropped on his head and he's completely crushed, then they cut to the next scene and he's just got a bandage on his head. So I started thinking about the parameters that were available to cartoon characters, and if they were available to cartoon characters, and nobody ever asked a question, whether you were five or 95, you didn't ask a question. Oh, Wiley Coyote, of course he's still alive.

MR. DEPP: So I tried to incorporate these kind of ideas into the character of Captain Jack Sparrow so that -- so that I could try to push those parameters and control the sort of suspension of disbelief to be able to control the character's actions, words, movements, and put them in a place where the things that he would do or say were so, either ludicrous or namely something that -- also, something -- the cartoon characters can get away with things we can't. Captain Jack Sparrow could do things that I could never do. He could say things that I could never say. So, it was, for me, a way to stretch the parameters of a character and take a risk in doing that. But if it panned out, and I felt I was on a pretty good mission, if it panned out, I felt that it might be a character who would be accepted by five-year-olds and 45-year-olds, and 65-year-olds, and 85-year-olds, in the same way that Bugs Bunny is, you know, the lead.

MR. DEPP: I'm sorry?

MR. DEPP: The first screenplay I received was 2002, I believe. Yeah, 2002.

MR. DEPP: I thought that it had all the kind of hallmarks of a Disney film, that is to say a kind of predictable, three-act structure with - and the character of Captain Jack was more -- he was more like a squash bug or type that would kind of swing in shirtless and, you know, be the hero. And I had quite different ideas about the character, so I incorporated my notes into the character and brought that character to life, much to the chagrin of Disney, initially.

MR. DEPP: Just, you know, in preparation. You know, the very same way that I've ever approached any character. You look for a back history, base it on, you know, it could be anything. Like Edward Scissorhands, for example, was based on a dog that I'd had and newborn babies. My sister had a couple of new babies and I watched them, you know, because I thought that Edward would see things from this sort of -- from a place of innocence and not knowing exactly what things meant or were. And, also, that look of a pure, innocent child when they experience something for the first time.

MR. DEPP: Those were the two main ingredients that I thought would serve the character.

MR. DEPP: And with Captain Jack, again, the, --1632-1,-- cartoons, you know, Pepe Le Pew, you know, it's like making a soup, you know. It's ingredients. It's just ingredients. There's some Pepe Le Pew in there. There's some Keith Richards in there. There's a bit of a -you know, I figured this is a guy who's been on the scene for the majority of his life, quite possibly his brain may have been S scrambled a bit by the sun, and, also, I felt that he had been on the sea for so long that he had his sea legs. But when he got on land, he just didn't have his land legs. So, he could never quite stand still.

MR. DEPP: I didn't see it. But I believe that the film, well, I mean, the film did pretty well, apparently, and they wanted to keep going, making more. And I was trying to do that, as it was - there's great freedom in being able to - it's not like you become that person, but if you know that character to the degree that I did, because he was not what the writers wrote, so they really weren't able to write for him.

MR. DEPP: So once you know a character better than the writers, that's when you have to be true to the character and add your words, add the Is rewrites.

MR. DEPP: I was - yeah, I believed in the character wholeheartedly, and the - initially, the Disney folks were somewhat upset

MR. DEPP: Well, I had been around for many years already, and people knew who I was and all that. After Pirates 1 came out, there was a completely different - it was a completely different way of life, was being sort of - my family and I were being plunged into. That is to say at our house, in Los Angeles, you would have people trying to climb the gates to get in to see Captain Jack Sparrow. You would have people trying to bust in the gates dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow. And you would have -- or follow you or follow you and your family. So that was the moment when there was no other way but to -- we had to hire more security guards, and I was certainly worried for my kids' safety. So that's when the -- instead of just the one guy, there were -- you know, there became several security people because I wanted to make sure that my kids were safe when they went to school or when they went to Disneyland or when they went to the mall. Or whatever.

MR. DEPP: So, yes, more security and, you know, then just getting followed, you know, by hoards of paparazzi and things like that. I've had worse jobs, certainly. I can't complain about it. But, yeah, after a while, you realized that anonymity has left the building a long time ago. You know, anonymity's gone, and that's an odd thing to deal with when you just -- I mean, you can't just drive down to the diner and get a cup of coffee or something. It's not possible. It turns into 121 something else altogether. So it's, you know, it's acceptance, and of course there is a bit of sacrifice involved. I can't complain about the work that I've been given. I can't complain about any of that I have no right to. But, it does make you have to think very creatively, when you've got little kids, about how to take them to the park or, you know, to the swings or to this or that, or movie or, you know, it becomes a strategic mission. And that's what happened after Pirates.

MR. DEPP: Vanessa Paradis, the mother of my children, we were together for 14, 15 years. Myself, our daughter, Lily-Rose, and our boy, Jack.

MR. DEPP: Yes. Because there had been - there had been more films prior to that, a number of films prior to that. So I was recognized, I was known, so if you wanted to attempt to have any experience that might be normal, you sort of had to have somebody around to get you out of those squirrely situations, should it arise. So I had security prior to that for -- who would travel with myself and my family. But not like, you know, when I was at work, back then, I didn't have security at work so much. Not before Pirates. Pirates was really the -- that was the thing that everything -- it all turned around. It all just went weird.

MR. DEPP: Well, like I said, it had -- it became more strategic and you had to have more guys or gals because Vanessa, if -- Vanessa, for example, she worked in France quite a lot, and if she was in France, and I was in LA with the kiddies and working, security would -- security would basically pick my kids up at school, whatever, and bring them home. So, that became the routine, driving them to school, bringing them home. And if I went somewhere -- just the security guards I kind of multiplied, because you needed to protect your street, your house, your kids. Endless.

MR. DEPP: Jerry Judge was with me for, oh, boy, over 20 years. Jerry Judge is -- we mentioned him before. It was a year or two ago, he -- Jerry would go on film sets with me. He would do reconnaissance missions, that is to say he would go to a country before we would go there, make sure all the hotel rooms were all taken care of and such. Or when I went on tour with, say, the Hollywood Vampires, which was a band that I played with, he would come on the road with me, with another security guard.

MR. DEPP: So there was Jerry Judge, there was Malcolm Connolly, who has been with me for 20 years or more, Leonard Damian, Sean Bett, Travis McGivern, Mark Gibbs. I mean, there were a few.

MR. DEPP: Jerry has gone on to somewhere else. Jerry made -- Jerry passed away from cancer, so Jerry made his exit and -- but the majority of -- no, I believe all of those fellows are still with me, yes.

MR. DEPP: I believe it was two years ago, roughly. Maybe a little less than two years ago.

MR. DEPP: What is his role?

MR. DEPP: Well, now that Jerry is -- Jerry and Malcolm had worked together for a very long time, so I met Malcolm through Jerry. After Jerry's passing, Malcolm, he obviously, took over for Jerry, and, so, he would -- he would -- he took on extra responsibilities. He would have to make sure that there was someone on the ground, wherever we were going, that had done their recon, you know, the reconnaissance, to make sure that everything is set up by the time we got there and that it would be a straight shot into the hotel without a gaggle of paparazzi. You know, you didn't have to walk through 50 screaming, hollering photographers. So, you know, you go in through a garage door, through a slippery kitchen, and then you were taken to your room, where you stayed.

MR. DEPP: Malcolm had joined -- Jerry brought him on, so Malcolm has been with me for over 20 years now.

MR. DEPP: With Malcolm?

MR. DEPP: Endless. Countless. All over the world. All over the world. Everywhere. Los Angeles, Japan, Serbia, you know, film tours. Malcolm was my -- you know, he -- when we were on the Vampires tour in Europe, throughout Europe, then Malcolm was on the bus with me. We lived on the bus together, basically.

MR. DEPP: It depends. If there's -- or if there was a larger premiere, you know, where, you know, where it had to be worked out so that it didn't turn into a chaotic and/or dangerous event. Because sometimes, between you and the people, there are these barriers, and sometimes the professional photographers or the professional autograph people will surge forward and in the front rows of these, behind these barriers, you have little kids and older women and older men.

MR. DEPP: So when the professionals would surge forward, these people would start getting kind of crushed against this metal deterrent. And that was the most worrisome thing when you're at a premiere. And there are thousands and thousands of people there, and I've always called it running the gauntlet. Essentially what it is, is the people are there to say hi and to support the film or the cast, or whatever. So I have always gone out and signed for those people. I've always gone out and signed for all, or as many as I possibly could. I mean, to the point where sometimes Jerry Judge would literally pick me up off the ground to make me stop signing, take me away.

MR. DEPP: So, yeah, it was - there's those kinds of things at the beginning. You don't really get used to that, you know. So - I forget what the original part of your question was. I got lost in the gauntlet.

MR. DEPP: Yes, Your Honor.

COURT BAILIFF: All rise.

COURT BAILIFF: All rise. Please be seated and come to order.

MR. DEPP: My kids are now 20, 23. Leonard's -- Leonard Damian's been with me, I believe, roughly, the same time as Mr. Bett, somewhere in the neighborhood of 16, 17 years. Yeah, I can't be precise, but they were very young. My children were very young when they joined the team, which was, really, after Pirates was released in 2003, at first.

MR. DEPP: Excuse me?

MR. DEPP: Yes.

MR. DEPP: Yes. Very much so. Leonard - yes, Leonard Damian and Sean Bett, for quite a while, were both sort of assigned, as it were, to my kids. Taking them to school, picking them up from school, if Vanessa and I were unable to do it Or even if we were there, we would ride with them to take the kids to school.

MR. DEPP: And over the years, obviously, your children - my children have taken quite a shine to them, and they've become, like, another set of parents, in a way.

MR. DEPP: Travis, I believe, a little bit less than that, I believe. I couldn't really speculate. Just a little less. Maybe 13 years, or, I don't know.

MR. DEPP: Yes.

MR. DEPP: Again, I would never complain about the repercussions, let's say, yeah, the repercussions of the success of that film. But, of course, as I said, there are sacrifices that one has to make, sacrifices that you're not necessarily ready for. Is Just, simply, when you check into a -when you go to a town or if you go on a press tour or something and you're staying in a hotel, people stay in hotels all the time. I stay in the hotel.

MR. DEPP: We found that it's just a lot easier if I stay put in a hotel and not kind of - again, especially if it's with the kids or something, I don't want them to - I've never wanted them to see me as a novelty, I just wanted to be Dad. Now, they're well aware of a lot, they're well aware of pretty much everything.

MR. DEPP: But when you get - when you get recognized wherever you go, the basic truth is, it's pretty simple, people are genuinely kind and curious. If they've grown up with you in their living room from a television series or from various films that they've seen, there's nothing menacing about being recognized. Sometimes it can be. I mean, sometimes people can get -- go -- get weird. But we've found that it's just -- it's better, all around, if I stay in my hotel room and don't go out to too many restaurants or anything. Because it generally causes a bit of a hubbub if you go a restaurant, someone calls the paparazzi, you go out for a meal and you come out and there's 30 guys out there. It can be a little overwhelming.

MR. DEPP: It's not something -- I think I said it before. It's not something that -- it's not something that I've ever gotten used to, and It's something that I hope I never get used to because I don't think of myself in those terms. I I used to be Johnny, if that makes sense. I used to be Johnny. And then my name, , full name, which I honestly find -- still, it's difficult, it's uncomfortable to say my own name because when I say it, I hear the commodity, I hear the product. So I just went from Johnny to Johnny Depp, and then that name --with that name, Johnny Depp, and some image was cultivated, certainly not by me, but the media, especially in those days, they must label you. They have to give you a label. And labels are one of the things that I've fought, vigorously, with regard to my work. I never wanted to be the poster boy. I never wanted to be the -- I don't have -- you know, I'm not built with that kind of hubris, I don't -- I don't have that kind of confidence. I can do virtually anything playing a character.

MR. DEPP: I can become a character in my work, and that character may be able to spit out a hundred words a minute. But me, myself, Johnny, I cannot.

MR. DEPP: So therein lies the difference.

MR. DEPP: Well, I've remained a musician. I've been a musician. I started playing the guitar when I was 12 years old. And that saved my life because I locked myself into a - in my bedroom, at the age of 12, listening to, you know, records, moving the needle back, and then learning that piece and then learning it again.

MR. DEPP: So, so much so that I don't remember - I have no memory of going through puberty I was just playing the guitar; I was just- I was obsessed with my guitar.

MR. DEPP: Yeah. I mean, I've always drawn since I was very small, since I was very little, and always enjoyed drawing. And then began to paint and, so, started learning about painting and trying to - I suppose different ways of expressing oneself, different ways to release things that are living in your head, whether they be beautiful memories, whether they be horrific memories, whether they be - I have a -- I need to create. It's a need. It's a - of course I want to create, as well.

MR. DEPP: But I actually need to create because I need to summon whatever it is that I need to summon, whether that's in a film or a painting or a guitar note. All of those things should come from a place of - an organic place, a place of truth, because if they don't, well, then you're just lying, aren't you? Every bit of truth. A person doesn't have to say anything on film. What's important is what's behind the eyes. And if they do say something, what's important is not necessarily the things they say. It's very easy to say I love you, but what brings it into the realm of truth is what's underneath it, what's not being said, the subtlety, if you will.

MR. DEPP: So, any artistic or creative venture, any film, anything that I do, that's where I'm coming from. That's my approach.

MR. DEPP: Yes.

MR. DEPP: Certainly. When I was young, when I was about 12 years old, my elder brother, Danny, -- walked into my room and ripped the Peter Frampton record off my record player, threw it across the room and said, you've got to stop listening to this stuff, and he put this record on and it started, and I'd never heard anything like it, it was called Astral Weeks by Van Morrison. So I'm a kid, I'm 12 years old, so my brother turned me on to Van Morrison, then he turned me on to soundtracks like Clockwork Orange or Last Tango in Paris. He turned me on to books by Jack Kerouac; he turned me on to books by Ginsberg, Philip K Dick.

MR. DEPP: I mean, Salinger, the whole, James Joyce, Hemingway. The whole thing. So, I became very interested in the vocabulary and the unique voices of these writers. And then I started reading people like Tom Robbins and Hunter S. Thompson, and then ended up becoming very close friends with Hunter Thompson for the last 10, 12 years of his life. And Hunter's writing, of course, because of the amount I spent -- of time I spent with him, has influenced my writing greatly.

MR. DEPP: In my texts and in my emails, sometimes just even in my writing, you do -- you take -- you take the subject and you try to express it in your own vernacular. And in that, for example, with the text messages, that I apologize that everyone's had to experience, I am ashamed of some of the references it made. I'm embarrassed that, at the time, the heat of the moment, the heat of the pain that I was feeling went to -- went to dark places. There is no -- if you're writing, there is no set place that you have to stay in. You can travel. And sometimes pain can be -- has to be dealt with, with humor.

MR. DEPP: And sometimes dark - --- very dark humor.

MR. DEPP: I grew up watching Monty Python, you know, so, yes, it can tend to get into dark humor. It can tend to get - words are used that - for emphasis, and words are used to express what you're feeling at the time. And it's just like growing up, you learn from those mistakes. You learn from those things and you move forward, you know. And that's how you - that's how you start to understand your own vernacular and what's important, you know, what's necessary and what's not necessary.

MR. DEPP: I tend to be quite expressive in my writing. And after the unfortunate words of Ms. Heard made their way into my heart and my head, those are two very opposing things. So you're trying to - you're trying to find the best way to express something to a friend. Sometimes you're exaggerating, you know, something that you've done, just to make it sound - just to make him understand that, you know, I'm on planet question mark here. I don't know what's going on.

MR. DEPP: Know that it cannot continue.

MR. DEPP: Certainly. Again, this goes back to when I was a young boy. Excuse me. At about the age of, I don't know, four or five years old, I can remember, vividly, my mom telling me to go get her nerve pills, you know, out of her purse that was hanging on the back of the door. So I'd go get the nerve pills and I'd bring her the nerve pill, she'd take it and, you know, after a few years, you start to notice -- well, you start to think about nerve pills, nerve pill.

MR. DEPP: And then she seemed to calm down after she took those "nerve pills." So, when I was 11 years old, I wanted to calm down and I didn't know how to. So I'd bring my mom her nerve pill, I would walk away and I would (indicating) take one myself to escape caring so much -- feeling so much. To escape the chaotic nature of what we were living through. So, that was the beginning. Then I realized that nerve pills calm the nerves. It's a pretty young age to do that. I can't say that I'm proud of admitting to that. But I have to say that I knew not what else to do. I knew nothing else that I could do. So as we were all growing up, there were always those kids who would say, "Let's party. Let's go party. I want to party." I never used the word party in my life.

MR. DEPP: I was never -- I've never taken any substance for a party. I have taken the substances over the years, on and off, to numb, to numb myself of the ghosts, the wraiths that were still with me from my youth. So I needed -- yeah, everything -- it was essentially self-medication. One of those get-me-out-of-here moments, where you want to escape from is your own brain, your own head.

MR. DEPP: It started with my mother's nerve pills at 11. Of course, the, you know, that's around the age that you're introduced to marijuana, you're introduced to - and, also, depending on the - where you're living and who you're associating with, it was around the neighborhood. I, you know, I wasn't shy to try a substance for - to see if the effect of it would maybe even take a bit more of the edge off.

MR. DEPP: So I started at 11, and I mean, I even mentioned this in an interview in TV Guide, if anyone remembers TV Guide, in 1989, where I was asked, by the journalist, why I believed that kids who were , watching the show, 21 Jump Street, about police officers in school, undercover, as undercover cops, but as students, I was asked why people - why these kids, whether they should believe me or trust me or listen to me. I said, look, I could - because I've experienced it and I can tell them that there is no future in it. That there's nothing but a kind of a postponing of the

MR. DEPP: Inevitable, that one day, you're going to have to face those feelings. One day, you will meet those, let's call them "demons," from your youth.

MR. DEPP: So, I was straight-up open and honest, at that time, in a very - I mean, TV Guide was - it was read at the register when you checked out at the grocery store. It was the most popular thing. It was a very straight little magazine. But I told them I'd pretty much done all of the drugs I was aware of by the time I was 15 years old, which was true.

MR. DEPP: Now, that doesn't mean to say that I continued into that, you know, forest of possibilities with regard to substances. I wasn't dropping acid every five minutes. I wasn't- there were many years that I didn't touch a substance, and no drugs. There were many years that I didn't have a drink. So it's - as I said, it's not been for the party effect, it's been for - to try to numb the things inside that plague - that can plague someone who has experienced trauma.

MR. DEPP: I But the characterization of - the characterization of my substance, "substance abuse" that's been delivered by Ms. Heard is grossly embellished. And I'm sorry to say, but a lot of it is just plainly false.

MR. DEPP: I think that it was easy - it was an easy - I think it was an easy target for her to hit, because once you've trusted somebody for a certain amount of years and you've told them all the secrets of your life, that information, then, of course, can be used against you, especially if it's taken to a point that is teetering on impossible and teeters over impossible, in fact, at times. And so, I am not some maniac who needs to be high or loaded all the time.

MR. DEPP: I - in fact, in Australia - before Australia and in Australia, I had been off of alcohol for, I believe it was about 18 months.

MR. DEPP: Quite a number. You know, on various

MR. DEPP: Films. You see, I guess, maybe by example, if you're familiar with Hunter Thompson's book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which I was lucky enough to make into a film with Terry Gilliam, the film calls for myself and my attorney to be absolutely blotted out of our head, constantly throughout the film. And most people just assumed that -- well, they just got wasted and they filmed them. There would have been no way to -- you couldn't act that. I mean, you couldn't make that film with two actors who were loaded. There would be no way.

MR. DEPP: And then to the other extreme, Donnie Brasco, a film that I made about an FBI agent, I had to go into a training regime, where I had to eat five meals a day, drink five shakes a day, you know, these protein shakes per day, work out three to four hours a day because I had to gain 20 to 30 pounds of muscle. There was certainly no abuse of substances then. There's been no abuse of substances on film sets. There have been no -- there's been no -- there's been no moments where I would have been considered out of control, never. In fact, it's not been mentioned, like I'm sure they don't want to mention it, but I remember because we -- when I was with Ms. Heard and her friends and we were all drinking wine, and I was smoking marijuana, they used to tease me because of what they said was a ludicrous tolerance because I never appeared loaded or high or any of that. Even if I felt a little spinny, no one would have ever known.

MR. DEPP: Yes.

MR. DEPP: Roxicodone or Roxycontin, which is an opiate. I think oxycodone has the opiate, and then some pain, like a paracetamol or something, and then the roxys are just the opiate, as far as I remember. And when I was working on Pirates 4, and there was a scene in which I had to grab this large gold and red, you know, stately gilded chair, pick it up and throw it, chuck it out this big, giant window. And so, I did it and as I swung around to throw the chair out of the window, I felt this immediate electricity from the bottom of my spine down to -- down my left leg, and it was like an electricity that burned.

MR. DEPP: So, I had obviously done -- sciatica, so I'd obviously pinched something, done something. So I went to -- I saw a chiropractor, or PA, whatever, I saw a chiropractor, and to no avail, then I saw a doctor. And the only pain medication that she recommended and prescribed to me was Roxicodone. And there was a part of me that was a little bit worried, just in the sense that I know I witnessed friends and people, over the years, who have -- who've had problems with heroin, you know. And I didn't want to get bit by that snake.

MR. DEPP: And I started taking the roxys and I was bit by the snake, and then before you know it, that monkey is on your back to stay.

MR. DEPP: And its not like you take those pills to get high, you take them to -- once the addiction has grabbed hold of you, you're not taking those pills to get high, you're taking those pills to get well or to get better. Because if you're without the pill, your body will start to go into various - you'll - withdrawals. And so, I was on the roxys - roxys for a number of years, four or five years I think, maybe more. But the key was I - if you take two, you will be, what they call on the knot. You will be that. You will just drop into sleep. So, yes, I didn't like being dependent on these pills. I didn't like being dependent on a drug that would - you'd take only so you wouldn't get withdrawals.

MR. DEPP: That's what it becomes. It's like a junkie - the reason why so many- It's well, now, there's a huge fentanyl problem. The reason why junkies, generally, why they end up overdosing is because they're looking for the first high again. And you don't get that. You don't get your first high again. So, what do you do? You up the stakes and you put more, you take more. And that's what makes them - that's what makes things go dark.

MR. DEPP: 2000 -- or excuse me. It was Is Pirates - bless you - 4, I believe. No, it was Pirates 4. Rob Marshall directed it. I don't know what year that was, maybe - actually I ill don't - I don't know what year that was.

MR. DEPP: Yes, I believe so.

MR. DEPP: Yes. Yes. Of course, yes, so they must have - yeah, they did come around prior to my meeting Ms. Heard.

MR. DEPP: No. I can't. No. Once you've been bit, you'll be bit again. No, with my - I mean, even with my finger, I think it was, like, Motrin 800, you know, but no opiates, no. I have not taken an opiate since - and I won't, unless I plan on going through the hell of the pure horror of detoxing, of coming off those drugs. No. No.

MR. DEPP: Uh-huh. 2000 - in 2008, Hunter Thompson and I were going through some of his manuscripts of his books that had been published, and then I found this manuscript in one of his boxes, and it was called the Rum Diary. And I had heard about it and I knew it was, what they called, his long, lost novel; in fact, the only novel he ever wrote. And I showed it to him. Hunter was - Hunter was shocked, my god, that's where it is. And so he said read me some. So I started reading this to him and he said, "This is a movie. We must produce this together.

MR. DEPP: And he got all excited of the idea of doing this. So we went right into it, and we started to set up meetings to get money, financing, to develop the project. And we finally ended up getting the money to develop the project and to make the film.

MR. DEPP: Hunter, from his own dilemmas in his life, committed suicide, and - but I - having had long, long talks with him, I knew every angle of the book, but I knew every angle of the film that he wanted, which was going to be a bit different than the book. And Bruce Robinson, who was a great writer/director, directed a film called Withnail and I- and how to get ahead in advertising was the one of the things that Hunter and I talked about, so I went to Bruce, who was a friend of mine, and I ripped him out of retirement, because he never wanted to direct another film again.

MR. DEPP: I pulled him out of retirement after 27 years, and he agreed to write the screenplay and direct the film, and we proceeded. During the auditioning process, Bruce was -- Hunter had very specific ideas of what these characters should be. Bruce had been auditioning girls for the role of Chenault in the film, and there was these sort of starlets that were up and coming, and there were some that were well-known, things of that nature. But, you know, one of the things that Hunter was very against was stunt casting. That is to say put a bunch of very famous people in a movie and let them go, and then hope for the money in the end.

MR. DEPP: So Bruce had asked me, he said he had been auditioning this one particular actress named Amber Heard. He said that he'd auditioned her five times and he was -- he wasn't sure about her capabilities as an actress with regard to the film and the character and taking direction, and that sort of thing. So he asked me if I would read with her for the film. And I had met -- already I met a number of actresses and things. And so what I said to Mr. Robinson, I said, Bruce, if you've auditioned her five times, you've seen the best and the worst, I supposed. So me putting her, this girl in an uncomfortable situation, you know, saying, all right, let's read this, I think is - I think it's a far better idea that we just meet so that I can see how she behaves, see how she reacts, because that's all it is, reaction, behavior, and you don't have to push anything else, you know. So I made an appointment. She came to my office. I took one look at her and I thought, yep, that's the Chenault that Hunter wants. That's the one.

MR. DEPP: I just, I thought, yeah, she could definitely kill me. That's what Hunter wants. And so, we spoke and she was sweet as pie, pleasant. Again, you know, intelligent, literate, very good taste. And I felt like if she - what I felt and what I told Bruce was, look, when you put someone in a situation that they're obviously going to feel under pressure, it's not the best way to really know what they're capable of. And I made suggestions, such as - which I end up making to Ms. Heard, I made suggestions of films that might give her some insight into what we were looking for in terms of the film, which is - I have her films like To Have and Have Not, and things of that nature, because I wanted to - there was something very important that she - I felt she needed to know about stillness, as opposed to, you know, going broad or taking - acting a little too much.

MR. DEPP: So I felt like I could - I felt like I could be a bit of a traffic cop in that sense so that- because if we could connect, then it would- it could work, as long as there was truth in her eyes and as long as there was truth coming out of her dialogue, you know, then it's all in the editing. So I felt that I could help her with that idea of stillness.

MR. DEPP: So that's where I - that's when I first met Ms. Heard.

MR. DEPP: It was mostly very few interactions. I remember there was a time -- I wasn't working that day, but I was producing, you know, one of the producers of the film. And it was a scene from the book that was -- it was a scene where Ms. Heard's character was in a nightclub and amongst the locals, and she's very drunk and everybody's very drunk, and she ends up dancing with a few of the local, like one of the local guys and stuff, and then the other local guys started to close in on her. In the book, in the screenplay, as it was written, there was a requirement for nudity for the part.

MR. DEPP: And I was on set the day that they were shooting that, and as I was watching the crowd coming in on her, I realized, you know what -- because I would check on Ms. Heard and say, "Are you all right? Are you sure you're okay?" Because this was -- she was like, I'm fine, fine, fine. But I noticed, with the crowd inching in towards her, that we didn't have to do -- we wouldn't have to do the nudity. Because if she took her shirt off and she had a red bra on, and a skirt, then if she had a red bra in her hand when the crowd surged in on her, all she had to do was lift the red bra up out of the crowd and there's no nudity. But, it's certainly implied. Because then she disappears for- the character disappears for a few days and she's quite a wreck when she comes back because bad things have happened to her.

MR. DEPP: So, I remember telling Ms. Heard, hey, you don't have to take your clothes off. You don't have to take your top off. You don't have to - everything's cool. And she was appreciative. But other than that, we didn't really have much interaction until there was a scene where I was - I'm taking a shower and then she comes into the room and she walks, opens the shower and we kiss. And that moment was - it was - yeah, it was - it felt like something - it felt like something that I shouldn't be feeling because she had her wife, even though it was a

MR. DEPP: Well, I think there was something in the kiss in the shower that was very real. So that day after work, Ms. Heard had come to my trailer and I was - I was just sitting there listening to, actually, old blues stuff, and we had a glass of wine and we kissed.

MR. DEPP: By that point, my trailer was the only trailer in the parking lot She had a mind to stay in the trailer there for a while with me, and I didn't think that was a very good idea, on any level, especially since there were about nine Teamsters waiting to move the trailer, and then that was that, until whenever the - we did the first day of the press junket for Rum Diary in Los Angeles, two years later, and she had broken up, I believe, with her wife and my, for lack of - not my wife, we weren't married, married, but she was, of course, my wife, Vanessa, we had had some not-so-great situations, you know. She wanted -- she needed -- she was stuck in America. She wanted to go back to France. She wanted to have her life back. She's a well-known singer there, she's a well-known actress there, and, you know, she wasn't fulfilled in her creative world, and that's a frustration that I wouldn't wish upon anybody. So, we broke up and that's -- right around then is when Ms. Heard and I started to see each other here and there, occasionally.

MR. DEPP: I don't remember. I remember that there was a white dress that she was really-- she really was infatuated with, that she really loved this dress that she wore in the film, and, so, I went to Colleen Atwood, the costume designer and Bruce and I said, do you think we can snag this white dress and send it to Amber, you know, after she'd left. Because she loved the thing. I -167_?-;-:1:l- remember talking to her, I think, then, but briefly, briefly.

MR. DEPP: She seemed to be - she seemed to be the - she seemed to be the perfect partner in a sense, in my head, for me. Because she - as I said, she seemed to be very knowledgeable about old, obscured blues music that I listened to and really liked. She was literate and she was sweet, funny, nice, all those things, you know. And she - and from the beginning of our relationship, at that time, for a good year, year and a half, she was wonderful. And then things just started to change or things started to reveal themselves, I think is a better way to put it.

MR. DEPP: Little things you would question in the back of your mind You know, if she wanted to go to bed, I'd say, oh, I can't sleep right now. I'd love to just go and lay in the bed and stare at the ceiling. I would say, you know, I'll just watch - I will be out here watching TV and hanging out. And that was just not acceptable. Just not acceptable. It would stir up some rather unusual reactions from her. I didn't understand why I, as a 50-something-year-old man, was not allowed to go to sleep when I wanted as opposed to when she wanted to. It started out with little things like that.

MR. DEPP: And, again, they just- they eventually - they just, I suppose like anything, if they're allowed to continue, then they're allowed to grow, they're allowed to blossom into whatever they were going to become.

MR. DEPP: I called her Slim

MR. DEPP: I called her Slim because the film I had given her to watch, in terms of stillness, was Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, and I called her Slim and she called me Steve, which was Lauren Bacall's and Humphrey Bogart's nicknames for each other in the film. That was their names in the film. And, you know, it wasn't -- also wasn't lost on me the fact that there was an age difference and that, my god, when Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, that's when they met, on that film, he was 45 years old and she was 19, and they stayed together until -- well, for many years, until Bogart passed away.

MR. DEPP: So, yeah, there was a kind of a joke -- not joke, but just -- yeah, I acknowledged the fact that I was the old, craggy Bogie and she was this beautiful creature. This stunning creature.

MR. DEPP: I first met Ms. Heard's parents when they had come out to Los Angeles, I believe. And -- yeah. And I feel like that I -- I think they came to my place, to my studio, and they were two completely opposite ends of the spectrum people. Paige was - she was an angel. She was an angel. And I loved her very much. I loved her instantly, and we had a very good relationship.

MR. DEPP: Her father, Dave, was the opposite end of that. He was this outrageous kind of, almost like a cartoon cowboy, you know. And he was - the initial thought - I mean, my initial kind of definition for David would have been rascally, like a rascal, you know. But I - I loved - I mean, I grew to love them both very much, as well as her sister, Whitney. And then, you know, it felt like I had been welcomed into some sort of family. I had been accepted into this family. And those relationships stayed solid until just a bit after we'd separated.

MR. DEPP: Quite a lot. Whenever we - I used to have a boat and we would go - we would take her parents, her family, and we'd go sail the boat and, you know, drop anchor at the island and we would spend a week, two weeks, whatever, on the boat on the island. Also, they would come to Los Angeles quite a bit. We also would go to Austin here and there to see them, visit them. Every year, we would, on their anniversary, I had a friend of mine who had a restaurant in Austin, a very good restaurant in Austin, and I'd call him up and basically set it up so that every year, on their anniversary, they can just go there and they'd be taken care of and there would be no bill so they could just celebrate.

MR. DEPP: I think one of the things we did was, yes, we would try to order them a car so that they could drink. I was very fond of them. Very fond of them.

MR. DEPP: I don't remember exactly when I met Whitney the first time. But I felt, when I first met Whitney, there was something in Whitney that I saw in Whitney that was less -- much less confident than Amber -- much more revealing of insecurities.

MR. DEPP: Great, fantastic. She was - I called her "Sis." I loved her, you know. I felt - I always felt something - I always felt like Whitney had missed out on something.

MR. DEPP: She was living with her then boyfriend, Shawn Krajewski.

MR. DEPP: Ms. Film - Ms. Heard had informed me l that she just moved to a new place on Orange Avenue.

MR. DEPP: Los Angeles, sorry. Yeah.

MR. DEPP: Whitney was also living in Los Angeles, yes, with Shawn Krajewski and -yeah.

MR. DEPP: Oh, a lot. Whitney would come over all the time with her boyfriend for dinners and such. Ms. Heard always liked having people over, you know, for dinner parties and socially, you know, social kind of events at her place.

MR. DEPP: Yes.

MR. DEPP: With Whitney?

MR. DEPP: Maybe two, two - three times maybe, Three times. twice.

MR. DEPP: Yes.

MR. DEPP: I don't remember exactly when it was, but I - I do remember that it was after Rocky Pennington -yes. I believe Joshua was there already as well. Whitney- I can't remember why she needed a place, but she needed a place, so we gave her penthouse 4 to live in.

MR. DEPP: Oh, boy. On and off for, I suppose, a couple of years.

MR. DEPP: Nothing.

MR. DEPP: Whitney and I had done a line or two of cocaine together.

MR. DEPP: Almost immediately. Well, in fact, immediately, yeah. Immediately. I was introduced to the whole gang, you know, Rocky, iO, Brittney Youssef, Whitney, certainly. Who else? That's all that comes to mind at the moment.

MR. DEPP: Raquel Pennington was Ms. Heard's good friend from youth, I suppose.

MR. DEPP: Brittany Youssef was just one of the gals. You know, she was one of the gals, and she was quite bubbly and funny. Real sweet girl. Southern girl. I haven't seen her in - well, I think that something went sideways between Brittany Youssef and the girls because she suddenly just disappeared from the group.

MR. DEPP: Probably -- probably a year and a half, maybe two -- no, about two years into the ! 17 relationship, three years maybe.

MR. DEPP: IO, iO Tillett Wright was a friend of Ms. Heard's from New York City who was -- who had identified as a -- she was born a female, if that's the right terminology these days, born a female, but she was -- she had chosen -- at a very young age, she had decided that she was a male and she identified as a male. IO seemed to be, again, she was -- she was very intelligent, very literate, kind of a go-get-em kind of activist type, and she was writing a book, I remember, she was writing a book and -- or he was writing a book, rather, and I had a house on one of my -- on Sweetzer, one of the houses there was empty, and it was, in fact, the house that I'd set up to write in. And when she had no place to stay, or whatever, I -- I called her over and I showed her the house, you know, where the desk was and all the things. And so she -- I said, "Write your book. You know, write your book here," and so she did.

MR. DEPP: No, no. IO ended up -- no, she ended up living in the house for somewhere in the neighborhood of a year, I guess. Somewhere about a year.

MR. DEPP: Nothing.

MR. DEPP: Rocky moved into penthouse 2.

MR. DEPP: Oh, no. Penthouse 1, sorry. Penthouse 1. That was not long after Ms. Heard and I started to begin to dress that place up as our residence. So it wasn't very long after that, at all, that Rocky and -- Rocky came. I had already had my friend Isaac, who you've met, Isaac Baruch, the painter, I had already given him penthouse 2 to stay in and live in and paint in because he had -- he'd just come back from Florida and his mom had passed away, and I think he had about $3 in his pocket. So I gave him the penthouse and asked him if he had enough paint. And, so, he lived there.

MR. DEPP: Sorry, what was it again?

MR. DEPP: She ended up moving into the something to do with just not having a place. And Amber had asked if I would be okay with, you know, penthouses -- I don't recall. I believe it was Rocky moving in. And I said, of course. The penthouse is empty. I wasn't in the -- I wasn't going to be renting them out, necessarily, anyway. You know, they were for friends to come and stay. Penthouse 4, in fact, was initially planned out for my sister Christi to have an escape from her 3,000 grandchildren and the amount of workload that she had taken on at the company.

MR. DEPP: Longer than I did.

MR. DEPP: Nothing.

MR. DEPP: Yes, her boyfriend and fiance, Josh Drew. And then at a certain point, I'd learned that there was another female living there, but I wasn't sure who that was. I didn't know who that was. Because it was - there were two bedrooms, and, so, she had invited a friend to move in, but I met that person very briefly, a while after they'd already been living there.

MR. DEPP: Yes, ma'am

COURT BAILIFF: All rise.

COURT BAILIFF: IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and affixed my notarial seal this 20th day of April, 2022. My Commission Expires: September 30, 2024 NOTARY PUBLIC IN AND FOR THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA PLANE 'I ---------,------------ I R I l I I