Johnny Depp-Amber Heard Trial: Doctor Describes Efforts To Treat Actor’s Drug Addiction — Update

UPDATED, 2:47 PM: Much of the afternoon in the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trial was devoted to hearing from a video deposition of Dr. David Kipper, hired in 2014 to treat Depp for an addition to opioids.

Kipper described a plan to help Depp detox in the Bahamas, where he has an island.

But Depp at least twice expressed a desire not to proceed, to the point where Kipper texted him: “Stop firing me. I know what i am doing.”

Kipper said that Depp was convinced to stay with the treatment plan.

In a text on Aug. 24, 2014, Depp wrote, “Forgot to tell you had a hopefully very positive and free of ego squawk with Amber last night that went very well…and then I shot a few negroes in a club on Sunset Boulevard.”

Kipper said in the deposition that he didn’t recall the specific text, “so that may have been an attempt at humor.”

He also was asked about other texts, including one from his nurse Debra Lloyd that said that Depp had “punched a white board in the kitchen after a fight,” and another in which he kicked in a door on a film set because he was agitated with the director.

Kipper said that he never saw any violence between Depp and Heard. But the following year, in March 2015, when they were in Australia, Depp reached out to Kipper and complained of Heard, “She is as full of sh*t as a Christmas goose.” He called her “a malicious evil and vindictive c***.”

“She is so desperate for success and fame,” Depp texted. “That is probably why I was acquired.”

That was followed by another text later that month, also read in court, in which he appeared to apologize for his “spineless and base behavior.” He informed Kipper that he “cut the top of my middle finger off. What should I do? Go to the hospital? I’m so embarrassed for jumping into anything with her.”

Kipper said that he went to see Depp at the Australia rental house, which was “a mess. There were things that had been thrown around.”

He said that they went to the hospital, and Depp was referred to a hand surgeon. But Kipper warned him on March 15 that he would withdraw his care if he did not comply with the drug treatment plan, as he had to be “stable” for surgery. Depp then promised him that he would comply.

In June, Depp sent Kipper a note saying: “My deformed finger and I have no friends!!! By the way…Amber and I have been absolutely perfect for three f*cking months solid!!! I have locked my monster child away in a cage within and it has f*cking worked!!! We’re goddam best friends now.”

Kipper said that there was concern that Depp was “taking more Xanax than he should have been,” as well as the impact that phone calls between Depp and Heard would have on his behavior.

The court adjourned for the weekend.

PREVIOUSLY: A marriage therapist testified in the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard defamation trial that the volatile couple engaged in “what I saw as mutual abuse.”

Dr. Laurel Anderson, in a video deposition played in a Virginia court on Thursday, elaborated on notes she had taken during the couple’s sessions.

“He had been well controlled for, I don’t know, for almost 20, 30 years, and both were victims of abuse in their homes, but I thought he had been well controlled for decades. And with Ms. Heard he was triggered and they engaged in what I saw as mutual abuse,” she said.

Depp sued Heard following the December 2018 publication of a Washington Post op ed in which Heard said that she was the victim of domestic abuse. Although she did not name Depp, his attorneys said that there was enough of a connection to her allegations of domestic violence that surfaced two years earlier. Heard has filed a counterclaim.

Anderson said that Depp and Heard both were victims of abuse in their childhoods.

Anderson worked with Heard and Depp through 21 sessions. She said that Heard had a “jackhammer style of talking” and was “very amped up,” while he “had trouble talking at a similar pace.”

In one note she had written from a session, she wrote, that “he hits her. No closed fist. She hits back and starts it for pride because father hit her.”

Anderson said that the note was “her reporting to me” that Depp hits her with an “open hand slap.”

“She says she hits back out of pride…a lot of things trigger her. If she is triggered she would hit him first.”

After a May 21, 2016, argument, which led to Heard obtaining a restraining order against Depp, the actress visited her, Anderson said. The therapist said that she saw bruising on Heard’s face as well as in photos that were shown to her. Heard claimed that Depp threw a phone at her and struck her during the confrontation.

Depp and Heard are sitting at opposite sides of the Fairfax, Virginia, courtroom. At times during Anderson’s testimony, Depp chewed on what appeared to be a stir stick or straw.