Female domestic abusers don’t get caught as often as their male counterparts because they aren’t as common. It’s often hard to determine if abuse is happening, even when the evidence feels irrefutable. Even Hollywood isn’t immune to these toxic women who abuse their partners.
Two of the most notorious of these are Jada Pinkett Smith and Amber Heard. Both of these movie stars have slowly fallen out of public favor as people realize that they’re more than capable of destroying the men they claimed to love.
Take Jada, for example. Will Smith’s name trended for weeks following the now infamous slapping incident at the 2022 Academy Awards. The public outrage over his actions, however, quickly morphed into a retrospective on all the times the actor’s wife treated him terribly.
Fans couldn’t help but notice that Will seemed content to scoff at Chris Rock’s joke about Jada’s bald head until he noticed how angry she looked about it. They claim the “Men In Black” star only stormed the stage after noticing how Jada couldn’t stand Rock gently mocking her. Jada did seem to chuckle a little later after watching Will publicly humiliate himself in front of a national audience. His reputation and career may never recover.
This wasn’t the only instance of Jada asserting dominance over Will, fans pointed out. Another video started circulating which showed the actress ignoring her husband’s request to stop filming him.
In the clip, Jada asks Will, “You know Esther Perel is coming to the table, she’s gonna be at the Red Table, would you say she has been instrumental in you and I redefining our relationship?”
Will responds, “I would say don’t just start filming me without asking me,” before Jada turns the camera and exasperatedly says she’s “still dealing with foolishness.”
She continues filming and persists with, “Would you say that she helped us heal the hurts that we caused between one another?” Will’s face during the entire exchange looks defeated.
He then replies,”My social media presence is my bread and butter. So you can’t just use me for social media. Don’t just start rolling, I’m standing in my house. Don’t start rolling.”
Again Jada ignores him. She turns the camera back to herself and says, “Please watch Esther at the Red Table because she’s helped us a lot.”
This behavior led fans to take a closer look at Jada’s treatment of Will over the years and what they found was a pattern of troubling comments. They pointed to the couple’s notorious open marriage, which was reportedly Jada’s idea since she didn’t have traditional views on marriage like her husband did. The couple has gone through several public rough patches but have amazingly stayed married for over 23 years.
It’s not just longtime married men experiencing abuse in Tinseltown. Johnny Depp claims to have gone through such extreme trauma at the hands of his ex-wife Amber Heard, to whom he was only married for 15 months. In that short amount of time this former couple appears to both have treated each other badly. Heard later accused Depp of abuse, which he is saying cost him his career and reputation.
The “Pirates of the Caribbean” star sued his ex for $50 million dollars. Their public trial revealed sordid details from their past, including allegations of some truly horrible treatment of Depp at the hands of Heard. Some fans who formerly thought of him as the villain did an almost complete turnaround after observing the trial.
One of the more infamous details revealed at trial regarded Heard allegedly admitting to leaving poop in the bed she shared with Depp after an argument in April 2016. A security guard employed by Depp testified that Heard told him it was “a horrible practical joke gone wrong.”
There were also moments that weren’t so humorous. Depp said he lost part of his right middle finger after a fight with Heard when she threw a glass vodka bottle at him. Heard disagreed, saying Depp cut his own finger while intoxicated.
During the trial, there were multiple audio recordings that absolutely couldn’t be refuted by either party. A clip revealed Heard saying, “You can tell people it was a fair fight … see what the jury and judge think. Tell the world, Johnny, tell them — ‘Johnny Depp, I, Johnny Depp, a man, I’m a victim, too, of domestic violence … and it’s a fair fight.’”
Heard said in the audio, as reported by The Daily Wire. “And see how many people believe or side with you.”
Another clip had Heard admitting to hitting Depp.
“I didn’t punch you, by the way,” Heard said. “I’m sorry that I didn’t hit you across the face in a proper slap. But, I was hitting you. It was not punching you.”
“You’ve been in a lot of fights, you’ve been around a long time,” she continued. “You didn’t get punched. You got hit. I’m sorry I hit you like this, but I did not punch you. I did not f***ing deck you. I f***ing was hitting you. I don’t know what the motion of my actual hand was.”
“But you’re fine,” she told Depp. “I did not hurt you, I did not punch you, I was hitting you.”
“I’m not sitting here b****ing about, am I? You are. That’s the difference between me and you. You’re a f***ing baby,” she added. “You are such a baby! Grow the f*** up, Johnny.”
Neither Will Smith nor Johnny Depp are innocent victims in these situations. The defamation trial against Depp has brought up plenty of bad behavior on his part, with people testifying that he abused drugs and alcohol and behaving erratically.
Smith also chose to strike Rock of his own accord. He’s also admitted to having sex with other women while married to Jada. According to GQ, Will has confirmed that his wife was not the “only one” to have a relationship with someone else during an interview in 2021, just after the world found out about Jada’s “entanglement” with August Alsina.
“The public has a narrative that is impenetrable. Once the public decides something, it’s difficult to impossible to dislodge the pictures and ideas and perceptions,” the “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” alum said, “delicately” explaining that anyone who believed he was faithful while she cheated was mistaken.
“Jada never believed in conventional marriage,” Will continued. “Jada had family members that had an unconventional relationship. So she grew up in a way that was very different than how I grew up. There were significant endless discussions about, what is relational perfection? What is the perfect way to interact as a couple? And for the large part of our relationship, monogamy was what we chose, not thinking of monogamy as the only relational perfection.”
In summary, there are abusers in Hollywood, there are victims, and then there are some who are both at the same time. It’s a mistake to believe that only men can treat their partners in truly horrible ways.