[Note: much appreciation and credit where it is due for Incredibly Average securing and analyzing the video/audio evidence, compiling it into coherent and well thought out videos. I have linked them for reference throughout these blogs, but I have made the blogs in lieu of videos for anyone who needs to see a more linear breakdown through text.]
I mentioned elsewhere that my time in military service included running interrogations in a theater of war. As such, much of my training both before and during active duty service included such scenarios that cover deception detection and interpreting body language to be able to extricate information from unwilling parties. As such, taking apart and analyzing Heard’s deposition is a cakewalk compared to trying to get to the bottom of insurgent activity.
The first thing that strikes me about Heard’s deposition is her lawyer commenting that they’re not going to invoke the fifth amendment.
I find it interesting because that is essentially her right not to incriminate herself, and she waives it. Good thing. The fact that she’s eating BUGS ME. What that allows for is not only a distraction, but it is a delay tactic to allow her to think of plausible follow-up lies (as it were) to cover the initial ones. When asked point blank if she has ever committed domestic violence, she almost looks like she’s pouting. She juts her chin in a microexpression of defiance and does not want to answer the question. When she first nods it is unclear whether she is saying that she understands the question and there’s a reason for this. She automatically responds to the first question, which is “did you ever prior to May 22, 2015 commit acts of domestic violence against Johnny Depp?“ She then says no. It seems she does this to answer the second question, which is “do you understand the question?“ and it’s a very very subtle distinction, but she plays it off as though she is saying yes she understands the question and expounds to say but no she did not commit acts of violence. At this point we know that is not true. The fact of the matter is, her body language answers the questions first. The first question – – question “have you ever committed any acts of domestic violence against Johnny Depp?“ Nauseous. Do you understand the question?”Locali says, “no.“ The way she played it off was that she understood the question and did not commit any acts of violence. But her body reacted first to the first question. Yes, she has committed acts of violence against him, but no she does not understand the question. To my mind, especially because she smirks throughout the deposition and especially when the questions come up around Whitney, she does not believe that what she does is domestic violence. It may be something internalized within her that says she cannot possibly be the aggressor because she is a woman, and that may be partially societal conditioning and also denial. But she thinks the notion is funny and smirks and almost laughs every time the lawyer asks if she’s committed any active domestic violence. So going with her body language, yes she nods and subconsciously realizes that she has committed violence, but she will verbally say no Because she is both in denial and does not want to admit it under oath. denial is actually a very large part of her problem.
What’s also striking is that this is a sworn deposition that she has made under oath, in which case she is committing perjury in addition to filing the false report for a TRO.
[As a sidenote: it is equally frustrating that the lawyer keeps saying that the question is irrelevant, because in fact it is very relevant. What she has claimed was domestic abuse on Johnny’s part is either false or demonstrably self-defense. In the one-hour long audio here, she admits that she instigates, always takes it to physicality, and that he always leaves. In which case, he has never swung back. She makes a distinction at one point to say that he pushed her, and he corrects her to say that he pushed her away. She does not contradict that, and seems to concede that he is telling the truth. In that discussion she also says that he threw a can at her, and he clarifies that he threw it back. In both instances she was the aggressor pursuing him, and his actions can be deemed self-defense. Especially combined with the fact that they have already agreed that he always leaves if he can when there’s physicality. So in response to the lawyer’s statement, Depp’s lawyer’s question is actually extremely relevant because if Heard committed acts of domestic violence against him, then any retaliation would not be domestic violence on his part.
So even the lawyer at this point is treading dangerously close to a lie. Though he admitted that they did not invoke the fifth amendment, he jumps in right at the point of questioning where it would compel her to admit her own transgressions. Though he says they do not invoke the fifth, he stops her just before she incriminates herself.]
In Heard’s statement however, when she’s finally answering the question, even the fact that she starts itching her shoulder at one point illustrates that she’s uncomfortable with the question. It’s almost like conveying that one is uncomfortable in their own skin. With a lie, the arrector pili muscles will sometimes tense up, raising the hair on the skin and causing an itch. Even something as small and seemingly insignificant as this can be a means of detecting a fabrication. The way she stumbles and stutters through the answer and refuses to make eye contact also belies the truth. It is m significant here that she keeps looking to her lawyer as if for help, but makes a very powerful statement in that she refuses to be a “doormat like people who that happens to.“ What this says here is that that is how she truly views victims of domestic violence. It also conveys that she does not consider herself one. She is separating herself from “people that happens to“ which means on some basic level she understands that she is not describing herself when she describes victims.
At the point of the second question, she becomes belligerent. It is in demeanor only, but when the lawyer asks if she hasn’t “already admitted” it and apologized for what she did, she takes on the appearance of a middle school child in the principal’s office. That illuminates the fact that she did it, is completely unapologetic about it, and takes a defensive posture, Much like a kid who got caught fighting and is defensive about it while waiting for punishment; they, like Heard in this deposition, will put on a defensive and aggressive demeanor to front as though they are still fighting their corner. The fact that she even keeps her arms under the table is a defense mechanism, conveying that she has something to hide. She does not want to admit anything though she knows the lawyer is already aware of it, but she also feels no remorse for what she did. This is another reason why so many of her actions and statements are contradictory. She has the internal conflict of knowing that she did all of this, that it was wrong, but refusing to admit it to herself or anyone else. She has yet to come out of denial enough to take culpability for her actions.
When she does begin to actually answer too, she stutters and stammers again over answering the question. The reason that this takes place is not only a delay tactic for the brain to think of something plausible, but it is also a defense mechanism to try to keep the truth in. She starts to say “when I first started hitting– –“ and then stops herself; in effect, she starts to relay the information as to what she actually did, but then deflects and projects it onto Johnny, this changing the subject of the sentence to: “when he started hitting...”
Given that this belies projection, it is safe to say that when she first started hitting him, Johnny did nothing before finally trying to defend himself. She sees the scene playing out in her hands, in other words, and switches the roles between Johnny and herself. Likely as not, when she first became physical with him, he did not know how to react and did nothing.
Now m the next segment is the piece de résistance. In it, Amber acknowledges that the audio his lawyer is playing is in fact them talking about an incident where she not only pushed through a door to get at him, but hit him in the face once she makes it through the doorway. She starts arguing about the semantics of whether she punched him or hit him, but the effect is the same. She committed an act of violence and struck her husband after forcing her way through a door. That is not the act of a victim, nor is it mutual abuse.
She starts shaking her head, even though she is forced to admit that it is them talking, but already she does not want to discuss the tape. It is a smoking gun, and she starts shaking her head trying to backpedal and dial back everything that she has laid on the table but she can’t. So she stuffs her face some more. Delay tactic, again, trying to buy time and think of a plausible way to explain what she did.
Herein comes what is perhaps one of the biggest lies – – she says that she was trying to “escape“ from a room where Johnny was attacking her. She then says that he is in a room, so in fact she was not trying to get away from him she was trying to get to him. There is a twofold problem with the statement. He can’t attack her if he is in a completely separate room. Can’t be in both places at once! But also this makes her the pursuer/aggressor, trying to get into a room where he is. It also confirms that she was not under attack since he is in a completely separate place separated by a door. But then she shifts again 180° and after saying that he was in the room, then says that he is trying to get in the room. At this point he’s magically flipping between one side of the door and the other. First he was with her attacking her, then he’s in a room she’s trying to get into and push through the door, and now sheis in the room and he’s trying to get in. So there, in blatant perjury, we see the lie start to unravel around her. Yet she keeps digging. And here is the underlying problem with this whole storyline. The truth is simple to get to. It is right there on the surface, and all you have to do is relay it. Point for point, exactly what happened, and break it down. There is no conflicting information in the truth. You don’t have to stutter and stumble over it, because even though details can be sketchy and sometimes trauma helps people block things out, retelling it helps those things surface quite often. But always, always, always the story will stay consistent and retain the same elements. No abusive husband flipping from one room to the other and the other side of the door and back.
They get into a little bit of a back-and-forth, his lawyer and Amber, over the question of whether she was apologizing for hitting him with the door and then hitting him. That is not the actual important part here. Yes, she had hit him with the door. Yes, she hit him after she got through the door. But what is still telling here is that she still cannot keep straight who was in the room and who was trying to get in there. The lie falls apart even under scant inspection.
It’s like someone having to translate a foreign language – – they have to hear the question in their mind, translate it to their native language, answer it, and then translate the answer back to the second language. Amber has to hear the question, see the scene play out in her head and know the answer, flip the roles from her to Johnny, and then relay the information back as if it was happening to her instead of him. If it were as simple as telling what happened, it would not take her near as long to do so and stumble over the facts.
During the second portion of audio we have two things to pay attention to. It’s not only her expression at this point, not just the eye rolling, but looking heavenward as if for help. She wants nothing but out of the situation that she’s in right now, and just wants it over. She is stuck, she knows she’s being compelled to tell the truth even though she doesn’t want to. In the audio itself he is describing to her what she did insofar as being in the bathroom, and it is at this point that Amber in the deposition rolls her eyes because now she knows she’s been caught, but also because as you hear later she has had this conversation with Johnny before—being forced to admit she’s violent with him and she is so over it.
Once he establishes that he was in the bathroom trying to close her out, he apologizes even for accidently grazing her toes. This is not the conversation that an abuser will have with his victim. In the first place, they will not apologize for anything, they will instead deflect and make it the other person‘s fault or deny it happened altogether. This is what Amber is attempting to do in their conversation. Though Amber seems to apologize in the audio, she still refuses to acknowledge her actions by repeatedly stating “I don’t know, I didn’t know,“ as if to explain away the fact that she struck him. She never does deny that it happened, because she knows it did. It is impossible to not know that he’s behind the door or that her forcing her way through it might hurt him. she starts trying to deny it altogether, saying “I did not,” but changes it to “I did not mean to.“
At this point when his lawyer interjects, her lawyer jumps in, and she latches onto what he says. She refuses to admit what she has said on the audio, but as a form of deflection says that it “speaks for itself.“ It certainly does. But she does not want to have to acknowledge or explain the truth in that recording. What is significant about that second recording however, is that it is the same one that was leaked to the tabloids after being submitted for Johnny’s defamation trial, as well as the libel trial with The Sun. So that smoking gun she has already acknowledged, under oath and in her own words, is a legitimate recording by her own hand. In essence, she brought her own downfall.
At the point where they are arguing over whether or not she meant to hit him with the door, he jumps on the fact that she left it wide open as to whether or not she meant to hit him. He maintains consistently that she punched him in the face, but she wants to get into a semantic argument about whether it was a “proper punch” or whether she simply struck him. The effect however is the same. She conveyed in their conversation that she may not have intended to hit him with the door, she only meant to force her way through. But once through that doorway, she fully intended to hit him and did.
As Incredibly Average points out in his analysis of the video, she smirks from the moment where they start arguing about the semantics and discussing her hitting him in the face. The smirk combined with rolling her eyes again goes back to the demeanor of a teenager in the principal’s office. She knows she’s been caught out about that, and she doesn’t care about the overarching notion of hitting her husband, but she wants to quibble about the details of it.
In her deposition she again tries to go back to the notion that he is in a room she’s trying to get into, and she is trying to push the door closed to keep him out of it. Projection again, as they already admitted on the audio that he was in the bathroom. So the roles were precisely reversed.
She then gives herself away by talking about “whenever he was injured” and again makes a big stipulation about the semantics as to whether he was punched, hit, etc. Again, focusing on the finer points and trying to deflect over the overarching idea that there were multiple occasions where he was injured.
But again her overtalking belies the truth of the situation. She fully admits that there were occasions where he was injured, and that he gets upset about being hurt. She rolls her eyes over this part of the discussion as well. In her mind she is so over it. She doubles down on admitting what she’s done by talking about, “whenever you try to discuss it with him“ he always wants to talk about the definition of what’s been done to him.
She shakes her head again not wanting to discuss or disclose, but at the same time she is conveying that she is annoyed with his frustration at being a victim. She does not want to discuss those things, but he is the one who wants to air it out. She further states that “if he was ever pushed” and inadvertently here admits that not only has she hit him in the bathroom episode, but “injured” him on other occasions, and now pushed him.So the more she talks, the more new information comes out, and it is flowing easily now because it is the truth.
The second segment of audio that his lawyer jumps to is where she mocks him for claiming victimhood, as well as gaslights him psychologically by telling him that he “was not punched” and apologizes that it was not a “proper punch.“ There is a psychological abuse component here in that she conveys next time maybe it will be.
However, when the lawyer asks if she “punched Johnny Depp in the face with a closed fist” she immediately starts nodding and then stuffing her face again. Remember the Snickers commercials where someone gets asked an awkward question and stuffs half the bar in their mouth to avoid answering? Same deal.
During the second set of questioning the lawyer again asks if Amber has ever hit Johnny during the course of their relationship, and refusing to answer it, which is typically answering the question in the affirmative, she launches into a completely different story. She avoids addressing the audio that was just played for her where she literally admitted to hitting him, and instead launches into a story about having a fight with him on the landing of the stairs and her sister running out. She says that she is afraid of him pushing her sister down the stairs, which is not logistically possible if her sister was in fact above them on the stairs while they were below on the landing. So once again it is likely a case of projection.
While she is discussing them being in a fight and him hitting her repeatedly, she claims that security comes in and “does nothing“ except that one of them yells “boss!“ So we have security coming into the room purportedly from below, whilst Amber‘s sister Whitney comes in from above, with Amber and Johnny on the landing between. What’s interesting about that is that she motions as if to shove Johnny, in which case the projection of him shoving Whitney is more likely Amber shoving Johnny on the stairs...or Johnny once again shoving her away. But this is where I go back to her argument about “hitting hitting hitting,“ and then miming a shove. More than likely it was Amber doing the hitting, and Johnny trying to shove her away. In which case, when security comes in and yells “boss” they are wanting to know what to do. Take on his wife to get her off of him? Or stand down? since this is the story that she initially wanted to tell, and it is the story that she doggedly goes back to, I tend to think the parsing her first statements about “hitting hitting hitting and then coming into this scenario is the situation she was referring to. And let them fighting on the landing, her hitting him repeatedly, and him showing her away is more likely how it played out. Likely with Whitney watching from above, and the security team (Travis) watching from below..
She says that he was the one repeatedly hitting her, and due to her tendency toward projection it was probably her, so the pushing motion that she makes is likely his action to get her off of him. In which case, it was not Whitney above them who he was trying to push, but Amber next to him, in order to get away and get down to his security team and safety. He would not run up the stairs as it would block him between Amber and Whitney, which is not likely to be as safe as getting to his guards. Amber said herself in the hour-long audio that he always tried to run to Travis, and get away to safety, so this is the most likely scenario.
When she really starts to get into the story and lean in, her posture is defensive and even aggressive. She is angry at this point, getting frustrated with the discussion in the room, and overstimulated. She looks to her lawyer, and smirks at one point, but once she launches into the story her mouth tightens and she is visibly angry. She initially says that they were in a fight and her sister rushed break them up. But then she says that she tried to get between them. It is more likely in the scenario that it was Whitney who got between them because they were already fighting on the landing. She contradicts herself in that moment, And then contradicts herself again by saying that she doesn’t know what she did, and then the very next breath tells what she supposedly did. again the stuttering and stammering starts, trying to describe getting in between them, but then she says Whitney got in between them...but there again if Amber and Johnny were fighting on the landing, then when Whitney rushed forward it would have been her trying to get in the middle and separate them. Nothing else makes sense. How could Amber get in between them if she was already there? Logistics of her lies are not even plausible.
The underlying problem with this story however is it’s the “one incident” that she claims she ever hit him, whilst everything in the prior discussion has already established the fact that she forced her way through a door and hit him, pushed him, and that he has been “injured“ by her own admission multiple times and that she feels he is “dramatic” about it whenever they’ve discussed it.
Toward the end of the deposition, the lawyer raises a very interesting and pointed question as to whether Amber has ever committed domestic violence against her sister. Amber‘s reaction immediately, once again, is to smirk when asked if she has ever committed domestic violence against Whitney. She seems to think it’s funny that she strikes people, even in the context of hitting Whitney. There is a component of this where I believe part of the problem is that Amber, as an abuser, sees both her husband and her sister is people who belong to her. They are hers to do with what she will. She can hit them if she wants to. And she does not view it as domestic violence. There is a very common thread of possessiveness with domestic abusers, whether against family or an SO.
It first begs the question though, why would the lawyer ask that question in the first place? It intimates that there is something that the lawyer knows that they have not yet discussed. But Amber’s facial expression at that point says that to beat up on your little sister is not something she considers domestic violence. The belligerent mocking demeanor that she portrays in this scenario, as well as the one where she’s listening to audio about punching Johnny in the face big lies the same marking attitude that she had with him in audio. She looks down on him for complaining about the abuse. This coincides with what she said in the other audio about him splitting every time things got physical, and even when they weren’t physical and she was just berating him. The d’âme attitude ad when she says, “don’t be such a baby” and “grow the fuck up, Johnny!” It exasperates her.
Toward the end of the video clip, and presumably her deposition, the lawyer again asked if she has hit Johnny Depp, rephrases the question ask if he slapped Johnny Depp, and at this point she affects a seemingly bored demeanor, slouching to the right, leaning on her elbow, propping her face in her hand, but the microexpressions again are what give her away. She has shifted her body away from the lawyer and her line of questioning as a defensive posture. She is not merely resting her jaw comfortably in her hand but instead is nearly covering her mouth as if to keep the truth inside. Her eye rolling again is a defense mechanism because she is frustrated and angry at the line of questioning. As far as she’s concerned, it is material that has been rehashed over again, both with Johnny and now with the lawyers. She doesn’t want to discuss that part, she only wants to discuss her claims.
Throughout the deposition, a good deal of Heard’s discomfort stems from hearing the recordings outlining her own admissions while knowing she cannot escape the line of questioning. She likely thought that Depp as a male victim would never allow it to be aired, and thought she was in the clear. Luckily she was wrong and lawyers could subpoena phone records which include metadata with recordings including video and audio, and luckily Johnny finally had enough time and distance to heal so that he could call her on lying to and through the media portraying herself as the victim while carrying out the abuse herself.
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