Amber Heard’s Ex-Girlfriend Recalls Supporting the Actress at Johnny Depp Trial: ‘I Believe All of It’

Amber Heard’s ex-girlfriend Bianca Butti speaks out about her support for the actress in a new book documenting Heard’s legal battles with Johnny Depp.

Kelly Loudenberg and Makiko Wholey’s book Hollywood Vampires: Johnny Depp, Amber Heard, and the Celebrity Exploitation Machine recounts the fallout from Depp and Heard’s relationship and their subsequent legal saga.

Butti, a cinematographer who dated Heard after the actress’ breakup with Depp, provided never-before-seen candid footage for the project, which was originally intended to be a documentary before shifting to a book.

Though they’d split by the time the Virginia defamation trial took place in 2022, Butti remained friends with Heard. In Hollywood Vampires, Butti explained why she believed her ex and what it was like seeing her on the stand testifying.

“It almost sounded like someone else was talking,” she said. “By the time you tell it a million times you remove yourself from emotional content. … I believe all of it. Especially as someone who was her intimate partner. If I made a sudden move during an argument, she would recoil. It was clear to me that she was in a very violent relationship.”

Heard, now 39, and Depp, now 62, had a “dynamic [that] didn’t allow them to express themselves in a proper way,” claimed Butti, who added, “She was trying to stand her own ground and he just wasn’t having it. He was blacked out and drinking, a lot of drug doing, alcohol, and that is always a recipe for disaster.”

After meeting as costars on the 2011 movie The Rum Diary, Heard and Depp married in February 2015. In May 2016, Heard filed for divorce and alleged domestic violence, which he denied.

Depp sued the U.K. tabloid The Sun for libel over an article that referred to him as a “wife beater.” Heard testified in that 2020 case, and a judge ruled against Depp, who was denied an appeal. Depp also sued Heard in Virginia over a Washington Post op-ed she’d written about surviving domestic violence, though she didn’t mention him by name in the article. Depp won that defamation case, and the two reached a settlement.

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In the book, Butti recalled Heard’s headspace while awaiting the U.K. verdict back in Los Angeles and preparing for the next legal saga ahead.

“She had nowhere to put everything. She didn’t know how to cry. She didn’t know how to freak out. She didn’t know how to break down. She just knew how to keep going,” she said. “She was completely detached. … She was shut down.”

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After the Virginia verdict in June 2022, Heard wrote in a statement that she was “disappointed” and called it a “setback” for women. Depp, meanwhile, celebrated the outcome and said “the jury gave me my life back.”

At the time, Butti wrote on Instagram, “My support goes out to Amber Heard and all survivors of sexual, physical, psychological abuse. What is happening in the media, social and other, is just awful and inappropriate. Amber is someone I am grateful to call a friend and no one who stands up to speak the truth should be treated like this. My heart goes out to her durning these difficult times. No matter what happens.”

Hollywood Vampires: Johnny Depp, Amber Heard, and the Celebrity Exploitation Machine is out now wherever books are sold.

Source People.com