By the time they finally tied the knot in February 2015, Johnny and Amber’s relationship was severely troubled. Years later, Amber would allege that he was an out-of-control addict and rabidly jealous of other men and women, constantly accusing her of cheating. After turning violent toward her, he’d sober up and promise never to do it again, pouring on the love. Amber said she always stayed because she loved him and wanted to protect him, which is also why she hid the danger she was in from the people closest to her and the medical staff assigned to her. She said she was holding out hope that getting married would turn it all around.
For Johnny, who has maintained he never assaulted Amber, their nuptials were like a shotgun wedding without a baby. In the lead-up to the wedding, Bruce Witkin was spending time with Johnny in the recording studio. He remembered Johnny saying Amber wanted to get married quickly because they were both going away on film shoots. “She wanted to get it over with. [Depp’s sister] Christi was there and we both told him, so what? You don’t have to do it. Don’t do it. We were trying to tell him—don’t do this until you get a prenup. And Johnny kind of says to Christi, ‘Well you tell her.’ Christi cried and tried to convince Johnny not to go ahead with it. I tried to convince him too.”
But Amber insisted. She wanted to get married before Johnny started filming the next Pirates of the Caribbean film, which required an intensive six-month shoot in Australia, where Johnny would have to live full-time. Amber said she was seeking stability by formalizing their union, but Johnny’s camp saw the expeditious wedding plans differently. According to Johnny’s assistant Nathan, “When they were married, Amber would get half of all he’d make on his films. So she wanted to be married before the next Pirates film.” (Heard did not respond to the authors’ interview requests during the book-writing process, but she later testified that the wedding was moved to avoid scheduling delays.)
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There would be two weddings in rapid succession: a small civil ceremony in Los Angeles, where they’d make it official, and a larger celebration on Johnny’s private island in the Bahamas within the week. The LA wedding was hastily arranged. Johnny’s assistant Stephen Deuters and his wife, Gina, had traveled to LA from London to help Johnny prepare to film Pirates 5.
Amber was always nice and charming to them, even if they felt she was a bit “off.” It took a while for Stephen to catch on to the problems in her and Johnny’s relationship, but he eventually started to pick up on the signs of trouble: the little arguments, the snide remarks. Early on in their relationship, Johnny told Stephen he was worried he might wake up in the middle of the night and she’d be straddling him with a knife. “He’d make sort of offhand comments like that, you know?” Stephen said. “He doesn’t like to moan, or whine or complain. He doesn’t like to show fear. So he would say things like that to me, but kind of giggle.”
During the lawsuits that would later come, Stephen tried to tell Johnny’s lawyers about an even more alarming incident, but he could never nail down the precise date. He and Johnny were at the Infinitum Nihil office on Melrose going over work matters. “I could tell he wasn’t really listening to me, which in and of itself, isn’t that uncommon,” Stephen said with a laugh. “He would often drift off when I was talking about work. But something was different this time, and he was looking down at his shoes. And I just said, ‘Are you ok? What’s up?’ And he just sort of looked at me, touched his head, and he had a loose clump of hair on his head and there was a little bit of blood on it. And he went, ‘That was 2 am.’ This time he wasn’t laughing.”
Most of the people in Johnny’s life were aware of the red flags in the relationship. Whenever Amber traveled with Johnny, his team always rented out an extra hotel room in case a fight broke out and they needed to be sent to their own corners.
“It was hard to see, because we knew him in his prior relationships and it was never like that. Voices weren’t raised. It was such a stark difference with Amber,” Gina said. “But if that’s what they want, then you’re going to support them and you’re going to hope that it works out, and hope they find peace and happiness.”
The day of the L.A. wedding, Johnny and Amber rumbled through the streets of Beverly Hills in Johnny’s truck, making their way to his mother Betty Sue’s house as the sun was starting to set. Johnny’s bodyguard of more than ten years, Malcolm Connolly, followed behind. Malcolm ended up at Betty Sue’s driveway first, watching as Johnny pulled up and parked behind him.
“Do you really want to do this?” Malcolm asked him in his gravelly Scottish accent.
“No man, I don’t,” Johnny replied.
Malcolm remembered Johnny had a look on his face that said it all. “Get back in the truck,” Malcolm said. “We’ll fucking drive to Vegas and we’ll talk about it in Vegas, and we’ll fucking face the music after. Get in the truck.” But Johnny wouldn’t get in.
The post The Chaos Inside Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s Wedding: “You Don’t Have to Do It. Don’t Do It.” appeared first on Vanity Fair.
