Johnny Depp passed out on private island beach in front of kids, testimony reveals
Johnny Depp once passed out on the beach of his private island in the Bahamas right in front of his children, explosive court testimony in his defamation lawsuit against ex-wife Amber Heard revealed Tuesday.
Tara Roberts, who said she gets paid $10,000 a month to manage Depp’s sprawling property, was grilled about the embarrassing 2013 incident during cross-examination.
“Do you recall Mr. Depp passing out in the sand face first?” Heard’s lawyer Elaine Bredehoft asked.
“I recall he was passed out on the beach,” Roberts conceded on the stand.
The “Pirates of the Caribbean” star’s kids, Lily-Rose Depp and Jack Depp, who were around 13 and 11 years old at the time, witnessed the incident, according to the attorney, who said Heard was there as well.
“Do you have a recollection of Jack being present when Mr. Depp was passed out face first in the sand?” Bredehoft pressed.
Roberts responded that she did.
The lawyer then asked Roberts if she remembers Lily-Rose being “upset because her father was drinking and he was trying to hide it from her.”
The estate manager, who testifying live via video link, didn’t have to answer her question after Depp’s lawyer objected.
Roberts has been working for Depp for 15 years, and Bredehoft tried to hint that the house manager has likely gotten quite wealthy from her annual six-figure salary.
Heard’s team has repeatedly tried to discredit Depp’s witnesses by showing they are financial beneficiaries of the actor and therefore have an invested stake in his success. The “Aquaman” star’s lawyers have also repeatedly brought up Depp’s drug and alcohol use.
Depp’s Bahamas house manager also gave the jury more details about the luxury island getaway, which has a main house, a two-bedroom yurt, a beach house and a “roundhouse” outfitted with a bedroom. It was also the site of the doomed couple’s wedding ceremony in 2015.
Roberts told the 10-person jury in the Fairfax, Va., courtroom that she once witnessed a fight where Heard was “clawing” at Depp.
Heard “started to grab at him at his shirt,” the employee said.
She was “viciously trying to pull him back in the house,” Roberts said. “I was between them … I was getting worried about what was going to happen, and felt it best that I remove him from the situation.”
Roberts described Heard “clawing, grabbing at his clothes, grabbing at his hair” and said she later witnessed Depp with a “marking across the bridge of his nose” — although under cross Heard’s lawyers got her to admit she had no clue how Depp sustained the nose injury.
Depp, 58, claims 36-year-old Heard defamed him in a 2018 Washington Post opinion piece in which she described herself as a victim of domestic abuse. Depp was not named in the essay, but he says it clearly referenced him and ruined his career, damaged his reputation and cost him tens of millions of dollars.
Heard’s team argues that Depp did abuse his ex-wife, physically and sexually, and claim that his denials are not credible because he was often too drunk or high to recall what happened.
