By KELLY LOUDENBERG AND MAKIKO WHOLEY – ADAPTED FROM HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES: JOHNNY DEPP, AMBER HEARD AND THE CELEBRITY EXPLOITATION MACHINE
Adapted from Hollywood Vampires – a sensational new book, which charts, in unsparing detail, the car-crash marriage between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard – yesterday’s extract revealed the drug-taking mayhem that characterised their relationship from the start.
And, as we reveal today, it wasn’t long before their rage-fuelled arguments descended into violence…
While Amber and Johnny were still celebrating their wedding in the Bahamas, Johnny’s butler Ben King pulled into the palatial car port at Diamond Head, a riverfront mega-mansion on the Gold Coast of Australia, just south of Brisbane.
Palm trees swayed in the breeze as he opened the grandiose oak door and scoped out the ten bedrooms and bathrooms. Soon, the happy couple – whose wedding photos were already splashed across the pages of People magazine – would arrive.
Diamond Head’s owner, Mick Doohan, an Aussie motorcycling champion, had previously rented his place to Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Pink. Now the mansion would be Johnny and Amber’s home for several months while Johnny filmed the fifth instalment of the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise, Dead Men Tell No Tales.
Ben dusted off the pool table and checked the home cinema and gym. He was surrounded by stacks of suitcases, one filled entirely with candles. He unpacked Johnny’s clothes, an assortment of tattered, patched and stained bohemian garb.
As far as British butlers went, Ben was the creme de la creme.
He had worked at Buckingham Palace and for clients including Andrew Lloyd Webber and Nelson Mandela.
A new book has revealed, in unsparing detail, the car-crash marriage between Johnny Depp (right) and Amber Heard (left)
While Amber and Johnny were still celebrating their wedding in the Bahamas, Johnny’s butler Ben King pulled into the palatial car port at Diamond Head, a riverfront mega-mansion on the Gold Coast of Australia (pictured)
As far as British butlers went, Ben was the creme de la creme. He had worked at Buckingham Palace (above) and for clients including Andrew Lloyd Webber and Nelson Mandela
Also in Australia was Johnny’s assistant Nathan Holmes and other members of Johnny’s staff, including his chief of security, Jerry Judge, and bodyguard, Malcolm Connolly. The staff would live off-site, but two local security guards never left the grounds, circling the property like clockwork.
Nathan got the Apple TV set up with YouTube and Netflix, Johnny’s favourites. He made some bedside flower arrangements, rented go-karts for the race track outside and found an art teacher for Amber, who wanted to take painting classes.
They were soon joined by Russell Borrill, Johnny’s chef, fresh from the chaos on Johnny’s private island, Little Hall’s Pond Cay.
Johnny arrived first and began filming in mid-February. Amber was in London for a couple of weeks, working on The Danish Girl.
Johnny texted Nathan looking for drugs. ‘Any ONE of ANY of you guys start to lecture me… I just do not want to hear it… No stupid bulls***.’
A few days later he texted again. ‘May I be ecstatic again?’ he asked, referring to ecstasy.
Later, he pleaded, ‘NEED more whitey stuff ASAP brotherman… and the e-business!!! Please I’m in a bad bad shape. Say NOTHING to NOBODY!!!!’
On the Pirates set, things were off to a rocky start. Ten days into filming, the president of Disney called Johnny’s agent to say that on one day Johnny had been four to six hours late to set and 300 extras sat for hours waiting. The following day, Johnny was late again, this time by eight hours.
On the Pirates of the Caribbean set, things were off to a rocky start. Ten days into filming, the president of Disney called Johnny’s agent to say that on one day Johnny had been four to six hours late to set and 300 extras sat for hours waiting (Pictured: Johnny as Jack Sparrow in the movie)
As soon as Amber arrived, on March 3, 2015, she and Johnny began to fight. According to Johnny, Amber was ‘irate’ and ‘possessed’ over discussions of a postnuptial agreement following their failure to execute a prenup before marrying. He said Amber believed he was trying to ‘trick her’ into receiving nothing.
‘All I could do was try to calm her down and say that I was not out to screw her over or put her in a position that was uncomfortable,’ Johnny said later. Amber would say she was the one who spearheaded the postnuptial agreement conversation.
On the evening of Friday, March 6, Russell made sure the house was stocked with groceries as Johnny and Amber had the weekend off. He put the finishing touches on a selection of food on a coffee table in front of the TV.
Johnny and Amber were snuggled under a blanket as Russell said goodbye for the weekend. He reminded them that he’d prepared meals for the weekend that only needed to be reheated.
On Sunday, Malcolm got a call from Jerry Judge, Johnny’s head of security, who was out scouting locations. ‘Something’s happened with the boss, man,’ Jerry said. ‘You need to extract him. Just extract him, take him out of there.’
Malcolm raced with Johnny’s driver to Diamond Head. What happened there was to become one of the most contentious episodes in the couple’s marriage – one which loomed large in their later court battles in the UK and the US, in which both accused the other of domestic violence.
When Malcolm walked in the door, Amber was wearing a cardigan and a shiny slip, screaming at Johnny. Johnny was screaming back at Amber, clutching one of his fingers. ‘She cut my finger clean off…’ Johnny said. ‘She slapped me with a vodka bottle.’ He leaned over to Malcolm showing him the injured finger.
Johnny and Amber continued to argue as Malcolm tried to pull Johnny away and into the car outside. ‘Johnny, that’s all you do. You f*** off. You f*** off with your guys. You’re a f***ing coward, you big man,’ Amber shouted.
What happened at Diamond Head between Johnny (right) and Amber (left) was to become one of the most contentious episodes in the couple’s marriage
Johnny kept running back up the stairs to continue the fight, begging Malcolm, ‘Let me stay for a few more minutes.’ ‘Johnny, LET’S GO!’ Malcolm demanded, this time with more force. He pulled him back outside, locked him into the back seat of the car, jumped in and told the driver to speed away. Fast.
With Johnny in the back seat wailing, Malcolm and the driver raced back to Malcolm’s apartment in Broadbeach. As Malcolm washed Johnny’s bloody hand, he could see the bone sticking out of his finger. There was dirt and paint in the wound too.
He sat Johnny down on his bed and phoned Nurse Debbie and David Kipper, Johnny’s addiction specialist, who had been flown out to Australia to be on call. ‘Get here fast,’ he said. They took one look at Johnny’s hand and drove him to hospital. In A&E, Johnny, still wearing his sunglasses, lay on a stretcher, his bloody finger wrapped in a green napkin laid on top of a large fabric pad.
Malcolm stood next to Johnny, fuming. ‘I stood on top of a chair and I took pictures of him. I had enough. She could have killed him.’ Malcolm was convinced Amber was responsible and wanted to document Johnny’s injuries. ‘Every time I see him he’s got marks or scratches. She had a scary, scary temper… I thought, I could show up one morning and he’ll be dead. She could kill him.’
Since he’d met her, Malcolm had observed Amber as upbeat and happy, while Johnny looked like he was dying inside. ‘She was la-la-ing around like Mary Poppins,’ he said.
Back at the Diamond Head mansion, Dr Kipper and Nurse Debbie tried to locate Johnny’s missing fingertip while fending off Amber, who was fixated on returning to Johnny and being by his side. ‘He needs me right now! Me!’
Kipper and Debbie discussed what meds to give her to calm her down. Amber would later assert that on that morning she was fresh out of a ‘three-day hostage situation’, in which Johnny inflicted grievous bodily harm on her, including rape with a glass bottle.
Jerry then called Christi, Johnny’s sister. An audio recording captured his end of the conversation. ‘There’s been bottles thrown, and she – she admits to me she threw the first – she threw a bottle at him. She did it first.’
In A&E, Johnny (pictured), still wearing his sunglasses, lay on a stretcher, his bloody finger wrapped in a green napkin laid on top of a large fabric pad
He continued: ‘She has scratches on her left arm, which Debbie told me about. Look, I’ve seen those scratches before on other people, and as far as I’m concerned, they’re self-inflicted.’
He told Christi about another injury to Johnny’s face. ‘She said on Friday he got a cigarette and put it out on his own face. With a cigarette, he was so out of it.’ Johnny would later claim that Amber was the one who put the cigarette out on his cheek after throwing the vodka bottle at him and slicing his finger; it was all part of the same rageful outburst.
But Amber would say Johnny was out of his mind on drugs, having taken ten ecstasy pills at once, as well as cocaine and liquor.
She said she’d watched him smash a wall phone into pieces and lose his fingertip that way, though no evidence was found of a smashed phone.
Jerry persuaded Amber to go back to Los Angeles. Plans were made for her to fly out early the next morning, March 9.
Hours later, while Dr Kipper and Nurse Debbie continued looking for the missing piece of Johnny’s finger, Ben King returned to Diamond Head to find the rental home destroyed.
Inside the art room, Johnny had drawn a penis on top of a picture of Amber in a bikini, and drips of black paint covered the cream carpets. Red wine was splashed across the fabric wallpaper and white shag rug. Expensive lampshades had been painted with globs of black paint.
Inside the bedrooms, drops of blood dotted the white duvets. A flatscreen TV hanging on the wall had a hole in the middle where a coffee mug had been hurled at it.
Disputing Johnny’s claims, Amber (above) would say he was out of his mind on drugs, having taken ten ecstasy pills at once, as well as cocaine and liquor
Written on the mirrors in the bathrooms were disjointed phrases scrawled in black paint and blood: ‘Starring Billy Bob Easy Amber,’ ‘She loves naked photos of herself, she’s an artist,’ ‘So modern, So hot.’ Then, written in different handwriting with red lipstick over the paint: ‘Call Carly Simon, she said it better, babe.’
Ben said that when he walked through the aftermath, there was a trail of blood leading from one bedroom to the next and in and out of several bathrooms. Inside one bedroom, the bed linens were covered in blood, and there was also a bloody iPad and a blood-smeared guitar.
Broken glass and crushed cans littered the polished marble floor, the ping-pong table was collapsed in half, a window had been smashed, more expensive textiles were splattered with blood and paint. ‘I think it’s safe to say we lost our deposit,’ Ben said aloud, trying to make light of it.
He followed another trail of blood to the downstairs bar, which was set back from a pool table and lit with blue bulbs. On the floor was a bloody paper towel sitting next to cans, bottles and broken glass. Inside the towel was Johnny’s fingertip.
Ben went upstairs and placed it in a ziplock bag in a bowl of ice inside a plastic container. The fingertip was rushed to the hospital to give to the doctors. ‘But it was too late.’
Ben pulled an all-nighter cleaning up blood, broken glass, paint stains and booze. Next day, he escorted Amber back to LA. As they taxied down the runway, Ben asked, ‘What happened?’
Amber turned to look at him. ‘Have you ever been so angry with someone you just lost it with them?’
Just before they landed, Ben spotted the scratches on Amber’s left forearm, the same wounds Jerry had seen and which he’d called ‘self-inflicted’. They were long, thin, uniform vertical scratches. They stuck out to him because they were so consistent.
Johnny (above) drew a penis on top of a picture of Amber in a bikini… written on the mirrors in the bathrooms were disjointed phrases scrawled in black paint and blood
Back at her penthouse, Amber gave Ben a tour before writing him a list of restaurants he should check out while in town. The next day, Amber had dinner with friends, including her personal nurse, Erin Falati. Erin’s notes from the dinner read, ‘Ct [client] appears in good spirits; laughing, socialising. Appetite normal.’
Johnny would be back in LA soon for medical treatment, and Kipper, his addiction specialist, firmly requested that Nurse Erin keep Amber away from Johnny while he saw the hand surgeon and got ‘his meds balanced’.
In a message to Amber, Kipper stated: ‘If you are convinced that all problems between the two of you stem from his drug abuse, why would you have participated with mushrooms on the island during the wedding and ecstasy in Australia? I want to help you both so please help me.’
Apparently, Amber had also consumed ecstasy during the three-day ‘hostage situation’.
In his medical notes, Kipper wrote: ‘Johnny romanticises the entire drug culture and has no accountability for his behaviour.’
Meanwhile, the film company needed a story to give the public explaining why production on Pirates 5 had come to a halt. Three days after the finger incident a press release gave the ‘official’ story: ‘Pirate steers off course! Johnny Depp injured his hand GO-KARTING with Mick Doohan at Australian motorbike champion’s luxury estate – forcing the star to fly home.’
Incredibly, four-and-a-half weeks later, Johnny and Amber returned to the house where the nightmare had unfolded. Ben had made good the damage. ‘When they came back together in April, it was like a honeymoon. It was tickety-boo and lovey smiley,’ he said.
A few months later, on May 22, 2015, Amber addressed Johnny as ‘My One and Only’ in the couple’s shared love journal, telling him that in him she found ‘the madness of passion’ as well as ‘the safety of peace’. Amber would later allege that five more incidents of violence occurred after writing those words.
Four-and-a-half weeks later, Johnny (left) and Amber (right) returned to the house where the nightmare had unfolded
One of those incidents happened during their belated honeymoon trip in July 2015, aboard the luxury Eastern Oriental train through Malaysia.
As evidence, Amber produced for the court a handwritten page from her diary in which she wrote that he had choked and hit her. Johnny denied the allegation and presented honeymoon photos showing himself with an injured eye.
At the end of the honeymoon, Amber wrote in their love journal: ‘What a beautiful, extraordinary, magical, memorable, wonderful, stunning, surprisingly evolving and impulsive adventure. I couldn’t have imagined a more gorgeous honeymoon.’
Not surprisingly, the honeymoon didn’t last.
‘It hurt bad… I was so depressed’: How Amber Heard broke Elon Musk’s heart
Soon after a restraining order against Johnny was granted in May 2016, a large plant was delivered to Amber’s Los Angeles apartment, with a card reading: ‘I had a wonderful weekend with you – E.’
According to the sworn testimony of the concierge, Elon Musk already had his own key fob for the penthouse garage and had been visiting Amber regularly for over a year, late at night, when Johnny was away.
In late June, Amber surprised Elon for his birthday. She flew to the Tesla factory in Fremont, California. On the way she picked wildflowers, and when she arrived, his security team helped her hide in the back of a Tesla. As Elon approached the car, Amber popped out of the back, clutching a bouquet.
Two weeks later, in mid-July, Elon and Amber were spotted together in Miami, Florida. Amber was there with her sister, Whitney. The trio stayed in poolside villas at the Delano Hotel in South Beach, and Elon flew Amber and Whitney up to Cape Canaveral, where a SpaceX launch of Falcon 9 was scheduled to take place.
Amber told Elon’s biographer Walter Isaacson that it was ‘the most interesting date’ she’d ever been on. These were the first buds of a relationship that would grow into something serious.
What no one knew until much later was that Amber and Elon’s relationship was also turbulent and toxic, plagued by fighting, jealousy and dramatic accusations. Elon’s inner circle would go on to state strikingly similar things about Amber’s character as Johnny’s people.
As she was rebuilding her life and leaning into activism – when she briefly became an icon for the MeToo movement – things were heating up with Elon.
Soon she’d be returning to Australia’s Gold Coast to film Aquaman, only this time she’d be travelling with Elon instead of Johnny. In Australia, Elon rented Amber a beautiful home. Here, away from the office, his infatuation became problematic for executives at SpaceX and Tesla. For the first time, Elon was distracted from his life’s work.
Amber Heard (left) and Elon Musk’s relationship was turbulent and toxic, plagued by fighting, jealousy and dramatic accusations
In late June, Amber surprised Elon for his birthday. She flew to the Tesla factory in Fremont, California (pictured)
Elon and Amber’s relationship developed soon after a restraining order against Johnny Depp (right) was granted in May 2016
‘It would be a Tuesday night and she would keep him up all night. There was a blatant disregard for the fact he had tens of thousands of employees and he had responsibilities,’ said a source. ‘She did more to slow the advancement of electric cars than the CEO of Exxon Mobil.’
Elon himself later described the relationship with Amber as the most agonising of all his romantic relationships.
‘It was brutal,’ he said. For a man who has trouble accessing his humanity, Elon found that Amber evoked the most human of emotions: he was lovesick.
A few months after the Australia trip, during an interview for Rolling Stone, a flustered Elon excused himself and had a pep talk with his chief of staff, Sam Teller.
A few minutes later, he confessed to the reporter: he and Amber had just broken up and he ‘was really in love and it hurt bad’. In fact, he’d barely been able to function at the launch of his Tesla Model 3 the night before.
‘I’ve been in severe emotional pain for the last few weeks. Severe. It took every ounce of will to be able to do the Model 3 event and not look like the most depressed guy around.
‘For most of that day, I was morbid. And then I had to psych myself up: drink a couple of Red Bulls, hang out with positive people and then tell myself, ‘I have all these people depending on me. All right, do it!’ ‘
This breakup wouldn’t be their last – Amber and Elon continued to see each other, on and off, throughout the rest of 2017.
Elon described the relationship with Amber as the most agonising of all his romantic relationships
A friend of Amber’s who asked us not to use her name remembered a conversation in which Amber told her Elon was crazy, possessive and jealous, and that he’d placed cameras in her house, bugged her car, and was following her. But Amber’s friend was sceptical: ‘This is exactly the same s*** we just did with this other guy, Johnny. How is no one seeing this?’
On a trip to Rio de Janeiro in December 2017, Amber and Elon had a fight that ended their relationship for good.
Amber locked herself in their hotel room and started screaming that Elon had taken her passport and that she was scared she’d be attacked.
Hotel security guards and Elon’s sister-in-law, who was also on the trip, assured Amber that no one was trying to hurt her, she was safe, her passport was securely in her bag. She could leave whenever she wanted.
But Kimbal, Elon’s brother, said Amber’s ability to shift her own reality was shocking. ‘She really is a very good actress, so she will say things that you’re like ‘Wow, maybe she’s telling you the truth’ but she isn’t.’
Kimbal, Elon’s brother, said Amber’s ability to shift her own reality was shocking, adding: ‘She really is a very good actress’
After the split, Amber texted her agent, Christian Carino, who had arranged mediation between her and Johnny the year before: ‘Dealing with breakup. I hate when things go public. See I’m so sad.’
‘You weren’t in love with [Elon],’ Christian replied.
‘You told me 1,000 times you were just filling space. Why would you be sad if you weren’t in love with him to begin with?’
Amber asked Christian to give Johnny a letter she wrote expressing her love for him and apologising for what happened.
‘God I miss him,’ she said.
© Kelly Loudenberg and Makiko Wholey, 2025
- Adapted from Hollywood Vampires by Kelly Loudenberg and Makiko Wholey (Mudlark £25), to be published July 31. To order a copy for £22.50 (offer valid to 02/08/25; UK p&p free on orders over £25) go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.
