NEPO BBY

16

That was the first time I expressed my concern about dad getting clean - the following morning when he woke up and Lily was gone.

I told him Lily was upset with his choices - Amber and his drug and alcohol use and she didn't want to have anything to do with him until he cleaned up his life. And I told him - I wanted him to also clean up his life because it greatly effected me and deeply saddened me to see him this way. And he promised he would. And so I left that morning and went back to Spain - where I was living at the time.

Lily had Aunt Christi go over to Dad's place once he returned to LA and tell him that she wanted him to get help. It was somewhat of an intervention - I suppose you could call it that. And of course, Dad agreed and he did get help.

I know around this time, Mum and Lily had gotten close and had resolved their differences. Lily was also trying to do that with Dad. I always tried to stay out of it because Lily and I were different in that way. I never cut Dad off - even when she did. I was always there for him and I always wanted him to know that.

Grandma Betty had been sick for awhile. And Aunt Christi gathered everyone together because the doctors said she only had a few days left. So again, I left Spain and went to LA to be with grandma. Dad did show up - without Amber and he stayed with us in the house in LA that was now Lily's residence. Mum decided to stay with Aunt Christi.

While we were there, dad had really changed and he was doing much better. So that made us happy to see that he was not using any longer. And it was nice that he did not bring Amber along with him during this time because of the relationship Amber had with not only Lily but with grandma. I know grandma never really cared for her and did not support their marriage. I know she was very upset with dad and his actions.

With dad becoming sober, I think it opened his eyes to everything around him. The chaos he was living in. He seemed aware of it all and I think he was trying to figure out how to end the marriage with Amber.

We did not really discuss too much about his relationship with her or his becoming sober during this time. We told him that we were proud of him getting sober and staying sober. We generally just caught up as much as we could over the course of the next few days that we all stayed at Lily's house. We tried to take turns being at the hospital and sleeping so it was a difficult time for everyone but after grandma had passed and had the funeral - Dad did tell Lily and I that he was going to be filing for divorce from Amber in the next few days. So generally - we were happy about that.

• • •

"Mr. Depp, can you tell the jury the first time you found out about the incident where Mrs. Heard was photographed with a bruise on her face?"

• • •

I had made it back to Spain. And I was very jet-leg and had been asleep. When I woke up, I had about 50 calls that I had missed. Mum, Benoit, Lily, Aunt Christi, my girlfriend. So I knew something terrible had happened.

I called Lily back first.

"Jack! Where the hell have you been?! I've been trying to call you for hours! And so has everyone else!" She shouted at me through the phone.

"I was asleep, sorry," I replied back groggily. "What's wrong?"

"Apparently Amber has filed for divorce and a restraining order against dad," she stated.

"Okay?"

"Well, if you'd look at your messages you'd find a picture that was photographed of her leaving the police station with a giant bruise on her face."

"What?!" I replied and then looked through my messages and found the photo. I was surprised. It certainly looked believable but I knew dad would never do something like this. He could never do something like this.

I sent dad a text message asking him to call when he could. I knew if I had gotten all these calls - what he was dealing with would be much worse than what I was dealing with.

The news spread like wildfire and I couldn't avoid it. Everyone at school was talking about the news - and there was no way for me to defend dad against the masses. I had been dating my girlfriend, Marie for 3 years at that time and she ended up breaking up with me over dinner one night.

"Is this about everything in the news? You know all that stuff is false accusations. I know it looks real but it's not," I tried to change her mind over the date.

"I know," she said. "It's not that. It's not you. It's just I think we are different people now. We want different things. I want different things."

I knew it was bullshit. I knew it was because of the news. I knew it was because her parents believed the news but she would never admit it to me.

Finally, dad did call me.

"Jackie boy," he breathed into the phone. "Oh my God. How are you?"

"I'm okay. The real question is - how are you?"

Dad sighed loudly, "I could be better. Look, I know there's a lot of stuff circulating saying that I've done some terrible things. And believe me, I'm not a perfect person and I've made some mistakes but I have never...and I emphasize on the never part... I have never abused a woman before."

"I know that, Dad. You don't have to defend yourself to me. I believe you. I know you didn't do it."