Adding more voices to the he-said, she-said. Amber Heard’s friend iO Tillett Wright penned a poignant essay in defense of her famous friend on Wednesday, June 8, asserting that she ultimately called 911 to report Johnny Depp’s alleged abuse because Heard “never would” have.
“I called 911 because she never would,” Wright, 30, began in her essay for Refinery29. “Because every time it happened, her first thought was about protecting him. Because every time it happened, the sweet, loving man we all cared for so much would come back with apologies, profuse, swearing up and down that he understood how bad what he had done was, and swearing never to do it again.”
The writer and activist added that the alleged abuse began with “a kick on a private plane” and escalated until one incident last December, in which Heard, 30, “woke up with her pillow covered in blood.”
“I saw the pillow with my own eyes,” Wright wrote. “I saw the busted lip and the clumps of hair on the floor. I got the phone call immediately after it happened, her screaming and crying, a stoic woman reduced to sobs.”
Last week, several photos were released of Heard with bruises around her right eye and upper cheek. Others showed her with a cut on her chin and upper lip, and her mouth bleeding.
A source tells Us that Heard and Depp, 52, “had a horrible relationship,” but another insider insists, “Anyone who knows him will tell you he is not capable of this.”
In her essay, Wright noted that she “had once referred to [Depp] as a brother,” and even credited him with saving her life by allowing her to live with him for a year while she “healed and worked.” But, she continued, she was forced to take action when she “saw the wreckage.”
“When you call someone your brother, you also commit to calling them out when they are wrong,” she wrote. “As [Heard], shaking and crying, described this 195-pound man throwing the full weight of his body into head-butting his 120-pound wife in the face in a fit of rage, I found that an unforgivable line in my heart had been crossed.”
“No person, ever, should suffer violence at the hands of the person they love,” Wright concluded.
As Us Weekly previously reported, Depp’s divorce attorney, Laura Wasser, denies Heard’s allegations, saying the actress “is attempting to secure a premature financial resolution by alleging abuse.”
The estranged couple, who married in February 2015, will appear in court on Friday, June 17.
