Johnny Depp sent hate-filled text messages about his ex-wife Amber Heard to his friend, actor Paul Bettany, referring to her with profanities in them. This was revealed during Depp’s cross-examination by Heard’s lawyers on day seven of the ongoing defamation trial.
“Let’s burn Amber,” Depp wrote in one of the text messages, and added, “Let’s drown her before we burn her!!!”
“I will fuck her burnt corpse afterwards, to make sure she’s dead,” Depp further wrote.
Heard’s lawyer J Benjamin Rottenborn also disclosed that Depp had referred to his ex-wife as an “idiot cow,” “ugly cunt,” and “worthless hooker,” in separate text messages to unnamed individuals.
Defending himself, Depp said, “[In] the heat of the pain I was feeling, I went to dark places.”
He also admitted to partaking drugs with Bettany, who is known for playing Vision in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), and singer Marilyn Manson.
Depp testified on behalf of himself on Tuesday in the $50 million libel case he has filed against Heard. He has been on the stand since in the trial, which is the latest development in the ongoing legal battle between the former couple, which began when Heard filed for divorce in 2016 accusing Depp of domestic abuse.
While the duo had reached a settlement on their divorce in 2017, Heard subsequently wrote an opinion piece in The Washington Post, sharing her experiences as a domestic abuse survivor, in December 2018. Even though she had kept Depp’s name out of it, the latter slapped her with the defamation suit that is now being tried.
During the hearing on Thursday, Heard’s legal team also brought up Depp’s UK libel case against The Sun, for calling him a ‘wife-beater’, a few years ago. That defamation suit against The Sun was quashed, and in its ruling the UK court had noted that Heard’s allegations of domestic abuse were true, in most instances.
Heard’s lawyers noted that Depp had confirmed during The Sun libel case that he had supplied drugs to Bettany, including Xanax, on occasion.
Depp was dropped from big-budget projects like Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean as well as the new Fantastic Beasts film, in wake of Heard’s allegations, and in the current defamation suit, Depp claims her op-ed piece had resulted in his ousting from these movies.
Heard’s lawyers, however, contend that it was Depp’s unprofessional behaviour and his refusal to quit drugs and alcohol that lost him the projects, and not Heard’s allegations. It is for this reason that they are delving into his substance abuse history.
In his testimony on Tuesday, Depp admitted that had done “every drug known to him” by the time he was 15, but claimed that he did not continue to use and added that he was always sober on film sets. On Thursday, Rottenborn shared a text message between Depp and a nurse, which contradicted the actor’s claim that he was sober on the sets. In the message, the actor had said that he was “high as a motherfucker” during the shoot of the 2015 film Black Mass.
Earlier, on Wednesday, Heard’s team also noted that Disney had decided to remove Depp from the Pirates of the Caribbean film, before her op-ed piece was published, thus refuting the claim that her article had resulted in his ousting. Rottenborn cited an October 2018 report from the Daily Mail, according to which Depp was “out as Jack Sparrow.”
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“I wasn’t aware of that, but it doesn’t surprise me. Two years had gone by of constant worldwide talk about me being this wife beater. So, I’m sure that Disney was trying to cut ties to be safe. The Me Too movement was in full swing at that point,” Depp responded.
Depp also testified that his daughter Lily-Rose believed that Heard was a good influence on him, for a brief period of time. Heard’s team further claimed that Depp did not spend much time with his children, until Heard came around.
The cross-examination of Depp is expected to continue on Monday at the Fairfax County Courthouse in Virginia.
Over the coming weeks, other celebrities like James Franco and Elon Musk are also expected to appear at the trial to give their testimonies.