Recently Released Audio Flips The Narrative On Gender Based Violence
WARNING: article details violence and the use of expletives
Things had been pretty quiet in the ongoing Depp v Heard battle of late, but the silence has been broken with the recent release of audio recordings of the divorced couple in conversaton and Heard’s voice is vocally clear. Not only did she physically abuse him; he continually tried to retreat from the violence.
Buckle up people, this is a long one…
There have been numerous articles and videos made since the release of the two recordings and also meticulous transcripts, thanks to some of his dedicated fans and erm, The Daily Mail, which appeared to have the exclusive and was also one of the few outlets to actually report on these frankly shocking revelations. Interesting!
It would be easy to think the topic had been rinsed and that no more could be said about it, but there are still a significant number of individuals and organisations that refuse to accept the audio for what it is… Evidence that frames Heard as the aggressor and Depp as the victim!
“That’s a mighty statement” I hear you cry! The responses so far range from outright denial, to claiming the audio’s been edited, to it being mutual abuse; ‘but he was violent too’, ‘he pushed her’, ‘he’s just as bad’!
And this is a narrative that has been on repeat ever since the audio was released, while all the time conveniently forgetting the incredibly important point, which is what it is he was actually accused of in the first place.
So, what is sustained domestic abuse? Well, there has been an official definition of domestic abuse drawn up, with sustained abuse being a pattern or set of behaviours, and it’s what you’ll find in any literature that hopes to help a person recognise themselves as a victim.
Domestic abuse is…
It encompasses…
And also references…
This became ever so believable when you consider the level of accusations that were thrown out in to the public domain by Heard. The consistent drip feeding of shocking detailed accounts of violence…when you thought it couldn’t’ get any worse…it did!
The only way Depp countered this at the outset was to vehemently deny the allegations and he also had the backing of many friends and importantly, ex partners. But unfortunately his reticence to publicly fight back was construed as guilt by many. Friends, family and colleagues were relentlessly bullied for supporting him. Even when he did come forward to claim the abuse was in fact inflicted on him, it was too late and lasting damage was done!
We could dwell upon this part of the of the story until blue in the face, but instead I want to focus on the critical change of narrative that the audio provides, especially for those previously not ‘in the know’. I will however provide some background detail because of its importance to the substance of her claims and allegations.
Many of Depp’s fans and people like myself, who came across this case quite by accident yet drilled down a little more back then, already had the notion that Heard was being somewhat fanciful with the true version of events.
Rewind to May 21st, the date of the reported incident when he allegedly “wound up his arm like a baseball pitcher” and threw a phone at her face, striking her full on and causing extensive bruising.
Injuries that would have been apparent from the outset were not visible the three days after the incident, but were visible six days later when she was photographed outside the courts the day she requested a temporary restraining order.
There were also witness statements back then attesting to the fact that she had no injuries:
I’m not trying to change minds here with this particular contention. If you’re interested there’s plenty more evidence online. I’m merely providing some context as to why people questioned her narrative from the get go.
So, what does the 1st audio reveal to turn the entire narrative on its head?
Firstly, let’s go back to the definition of abuse:
In particular:
So far Heard’s allegations pretty much claim all the above in various statements and accounts and if true, then yes this would be text book sustained domestic abuse on his part as a perpetrator of violence, consistently and over time.
Now, I’m not here making the case for Depp never laying a finger on Heard. I grew up in an abusive household where the violence went both ways at times, so please note: this is about whether he’s guilty as accused. He’s the abuser, the aggressor, the one who instigated the violence every time…someone who ‘blows’ his ‘short fuse’ any time she questions him, so much so…
… she feared for her life!
Here we have Heard and Depp discussing an account of physical violence between them in their own words. We need to remember that this audio was recorded in private as part of their relationship therapy, so was never intended to be for public consumption (it is now in the public domain).
An important thing to note here, is that the entire root of her issue in the audio and why she gets ‘mad’ is because he took himself away from her, he ‘split’!
This is a textbook trigger! Abusive and controlling partners cannot allow the object of their affection to make the decision to walk away, we all know this and it’s one of the most common ways a victim ends up seriously injured or worse, dead. For the victim to split, is for them to take back control.
She opens the dialogue with a classic tactic of making her behaviour both their problem (and continues to do so throughout) by stating that ‘we must change’ and so on, but then turns the blame solely on to Depp for the way she behaves. This is a very typical tactic of someone with narcissistic personality disorder! I am not going to enter into the debate of whether she is or isn’t a narcissist (I have my strong opinion), but if you’re interested in this aspect, I advise you watch this psychotherapist and NPD expert professionally analyse this audio within that context:
So, remembering that she made devastating claims about him being the aggressor and that she lived in constant fear of his violence, it seems almost surreal to hear/read this extract, where he explicitly refers to her hitting him (and by implication instigating the violence), for which she mocks him and diminishes her actions by using his self defence as a means to negate her aggressive behaviour.
Aside from the fact that he states he only ‘pushed her’, thereby implying self defence and she doesn’t dispute this at all, this appears to have taken place on a plane. Is this on the same plane where he apparently did all this?
Far be it for me to assume and you could say, well this is an isolated incident, maybe his monstrous abuse had driven her to such levels of fear that her only defence was to…attack! That does happen, especially in the wild when an animal is in mortal danger, but nowhere, NOWHERE in the conversation is there any allusion to him behaving as described above!
Doesn’t that strike you as somewhat strange?
In fact the only further referencing they make to this particular fight is him asking about her toes…and I will come to this later…
So we move further into the conversation and it’s not long before we come across another violent incident…
So here, yet again we have Johnny not only explicitly referencing her being aggressively violent by throwing large objects at him, he also explicitly states that ‘it’s not me, it’s not me’ throwing things and starting the fights. Are these the words of a monstrous abusive perpetrator?
At no point does she deny this behaviour. Worse, she yet again tries to diminish it and somehow make it his fault that she does this (classic abuser tactic) and again it’s down to him not being ‘available’ for her, regardless of the very logical reasoning on his part; that he doesn’t want the violence to escalate and in particular doesn’t want to retaliate. By the end he’s so exasperated that he asks her to go listen to a previous recording that I guess covers this in more detail.
And this again seems to demonstrate a toxic pattern that they’ve found themselves in, where she (who clearly has attachment issues) gets ‘mad’ when he doesn’t give her the attention or perceived affection she needs, which then drives him to retreat further for fear of escalating violence. This also indicates a behaviour on his part that could be a pattern from early childhood trauma. This is beautifully analysed by Zoe in a further video and I advise you watch all her videos on the topic.
So clear as day we have an abuser/victim scenario right here! And it gets worse when gaslighting sets in.
At the top Depp refers to an earlier statement by Heard that ‘all the trust has gone’ in the marriage and this is down to him ‘splitting’. He’s fallen into a somewhat passive aggressive means of getting his point across, because as we can see, he constantly struggles to make valid points; not because he doesn’t have any but because she won’t let him!
Even on this one utterance she launches into the ‘we’ ‘you’ tactic again, kind of soothing him by feigning mutual responsibility but then, yet again, passing the blame onto him, belittling him and demeaning him in the process.
He again tries to bring the issue back round to her aggression to which she demonstrates textbook gaslighting behaviour! Firstly she denies and confirms said behaviour in one sentence. On the face of it that might seem like someone who’s a bit confused in the heat of the moment. NO! This is a very deliberate and effective tool in gaslighting: it confuscates the contention and completely confuses the victim, rendering them unable to fully rationalise what’s been said and disables their ability to further clarify any argument. They end up doubting themselves, even though they have a perfectly valid grievance.
She then proceeds to weaponise what’s been said, a tactic used so the victim struggles to even have it in their mind as a justifiable argument. “If you think I’m some kind of tyrant or bully, then don’t even be with me” … she might as well have wrapped those words up in a bullet and shot him in the head with it! He can’t come back from that; his perfectly reasoned argument about her behaviour is dead in the water. It also serves to manipulate his feelings, to guilt trip him into regretting his behaviour for fear that she thinks he doesn’t love her and would consider not being with her, which again feeds the narrative that he’s a coward and a quitter whilst deflecting from her own behaviour. She’s also the hero in all of this (the whiff of NPD is strong)! He’s never the one to take the strong line and resolve things. She’s always the strong one in the relationship because she’s willing to FIGHT!
Here again she’s diminishing his reaction to violence and has started to treat him like a child by implication; that he’s overreacted to her behaviour and is using further gaslighting language to turn black into white “I wasn’t punching you, I was hitting you”, so that rather than recognise and apologise for her clearly unreasonable and aggressive actions, the victim has to unravel the semantics of her actions, causing further confusion.
Let’s look a little further at this notion that he’s a coward. What is she tapping into here? On the face of it, she’s merely referring to him ‘splitting’, ‘running away’ and therefore shirking his responsibility when it comes to resolving issues. But in a toxic abusive relationship these insinuations run much much deeper. I referred earlier to Depp’s childhood and it’s public knowledge that his mum suffered from mental health issues, which were largely taken out on him, and that he experienced abuse and physical violence on a regular basis. After listening to the professional analysis about this (as mentioned above), I would say she’s pinpointed his deepest fragility, which stems from these early experiences and is using them against him to maintain power over him.
You remember the plane incident from earlier? Well, in her version of events he did all those terrible things to her then went and blacked out in the toilet. In his version of events, he was hiding from her in the toilet and when she tried to push her way in, his pressing against the door caused it to hurt her toes. The below interaction is because he, ok sarcastically I give him that, he asked her how her toes were…
She’s calling him a baby and implying that he’s having a childish response to physical abuse! She’s claiming the moral high ground because he hurt her, but she’s strong, so she’s not bothered by such a trivial thing as trying to push her way into the toilet where he’s hiding and then gets a little hurt. That’s the big difference between them see! Not that she’s an abuser, aggressor, gaslighting, victim blaming perpetrator, but that she can handle the pain of the defensive actions of her victim.
In the final sentence she refers to his fame and success as being the reason why he can’t take criticism or questioning. I never knew that the throwing of pots and pans, or that punching…sorry…that hitting someone equated to criticism and therefore warranted a reasoned response such as, I don’t know, grovelling apologies?
To finish off I’m going to share an extract from an article penned in 2016 and found on the gift that keeps on giving, Jamnernews.wordpress.com, about whether Heard is indeed a narcissist and how that would influence her behaviour when being faced with Depp really splitting and leaving her:
Within these words we have clear, abusive traits:
It’s well documented that she prevented him from seeing family, especially his mum (which I touch on in part 2). Friends have said they barely saw him in the years that they were married. His long serving staff have spoken up about how he went from being a sociable, jovial easy going person to a drug addled virtual recluse (she’s heard on the audio feeding him Xanax as soon as he gets too difficult). His health suffered, his personality, his looks, his ability to self care. These are all red flag signs that someone is a victim of abuse and coercion!
Another important point made above is something that his lawyer touched on in 2016 (and I will revisit in part two); the timing of her oh so public divorce filing, the reaction to it and then the accusations.
The fact that she filed days after his mum died was not received well and therefore in order to preserve her reputation, she cited domestic abuse as the reason and went about that by taking out an RO, even though he wasn’t in the country, so therefore completely unnecessary, yet it had maximum negative effect.
Yes! She did that!
His lawyer said it and she says it herself (2nd audio peeps)!
This whole shit show speaks to me, and to other victims of abuse, of textbook abuser/victim behaviour and Depp was the victim! We can argue over the tabloid tit for tat that pre-dates this audio, but nobody can argue with what’s been recorded here!
I have obviously edited the full transcript for the purpose of writing this and it could be argued that I’ve cherry picked the bits that shine a light in a biased way, but I would encourage anybody reading this who hasn’t, please read the full transcript or even better, listen to the full audio. You will not find anything that contradicts my take I can assure you. Don’t deny what’s staring you in the face! Don’t be like Heard!
This is the most empirical evidence you’re ever going to get which changes the narrative. Actually, no that’s not quite true!
In Part 2, I will be analysing the 2nd audio and will look at how it further proves that not only was she the aggressor, but also that she set Depp up with the most clever of abuse hoaxes.
