Johnny Depp and Amber Heard at the European premiere of “The Rum Diary” at London’s Odeon Kensington. (Photo: John Phillips/UK Press via Getty Images)
After splitting from Paradis in 2012, Depp began dating Amber Heard. They became engaged on Christmas Eve 2013 and married in 2015.Their relationship ultimately led to one of the most publicized trials of the 2020s. Depp sued Heard for $50 million after she suggested in a 2018 Washington Post column that he had been abusive toward her. Depp denied ever hitting her, and a jury ultimately sided with the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star, awarding him more than $10 million in damages. It was during this trial that many details about Depp’s troubled childhood were revealed.
Reflecting on the lawsuit in 2025, Depp told The Sunday Times:
“It’s gone too far. I knew I’d have to half-eviscerate myself. Everyone was saying, ‘It’ll disappear!’ But I can’t believe it. What’s going to disappear? A fiction planted all over the fucking world? No, it won’t. If I don’t try to represent the truth, it’ll be as if I actually committed the acts I’m accused of. And my children will have to live with it. Their children. The children I met in the hospitals. So the night before the trial in Virginia, I wasn’t nervous. If you don’t have to memorize your lines, if you just tell the truth? Roll the dice.”
During numerous court battles involving Depp and Amber Heard, he testified about his struggles with substance abuse, saying he began using drugs “at a very young age, when I didn’t have a particularly stable, safe, and secure home.” He explained that his early use of drugs and alcohol was “the only way I found to numb the pain.”
