Johnny Depp and Amber Heard's former counselor claims they 'engaged in mutual abuse'
Johnny Depp and Amber Heard's former counselor claimed in a court statement Thursday that the dysfunctional couple had "engaged in mutual abuse" during their marriage.
According to Variety, Dr. Laurel Anderson weighs in on the couple's history of abusive relationships in her testimony about 'avoiding domestic abuse' in a 2018 op-ed in the defamation case filed by Depp on February 21 against Heard. was recorded.
In his statement, Dr. Anderson details the marriage counseling he provided to the couple back in 2015.
When asked whether Depp abused Heard, Anderson replied: "Yeah, you're right. He was well controlled, I think, almost, I don't know, 20, 30 years."
She continued: "Both were victims of abuse in their homes, but I felt she was well controlled for decades. And then they were triggered with Ms. Heard, and what I saw as mutual abuse, joined it.
Anderson also claimed that Heard "sometimes started fights to keep her with him because abandonment was his worst nightmare."
The counselor also remembered Heard as saying, "If Depp was going to leave her to cut the fight short, she would strike to keep him there because she would rather be in the fight than leave him."
Depp and Heard have been embroiled in bitter legal matters since their split in 2016. The pair first met on the set of the 2011 film The Rum Diary and were divorced by 2016.