On the second day of his libel case against The Sun, the publication’s attorneys grilled Johnny Depp about a number of abusive texts he exchanged with Paul Bettany regarding Amber Heard.
The former couple had settled for divorce and called a truce back in 2016. But The Sun running a piece and accusing the Pirates of the Caribbean star of physically and emotionally abusing his then-wife compelled Depp to take a stance. This resulted in a multi-million dollar defamation lawsuit against Heard and a libel case against the newspaper. Over the course of the past few months, things have been generally in favor of Depp, who presented a lot of evidence that exposed the Aquaman actress as the real abuser in their short-lived union.
Now, Depp and his attorneys are facing off against NGN, The Sun’s owners, in court. And after being accused of jokingly mistreating Heard’s dog and even slapping his ex-partner after she mocked him because of his tattoos, the Fantastic Beasts actor fired back by bringing up the fact that Heard cheated on him several times when they were still married. The publication’s defendants, on the other hand, read out a series of texts between Depp and WandaVision star Paul Bettany that were abusive towards Heard.
At first, the two joked about Depp buying his wife a beaver so that he could start websites like “Johnny Depp Shaves Amber Heard’s Beaver” or “Johnny Depp Pokes Amber Heard’s Beaver.” The former Pirates star admitted that these weren’t respectful of his former partner, but the texts take a much darker turn later on in their relationship.
Allegedly, this is the conversation that took place between the two when Heard would harass her husband about not being sober while she drank alcohol in front of him.
Bettany writes: “I’m not sure we should burn Amber. She is delightful company and pleasing on the eye. We could of course do the English course of action and perform a drowning test. Thoughts? You have a swimming pool.”
Depp replied: “Let’s drown her before we burn her!!! I will f*** her burnt corpse afterwards to make sure she’s dead.”
The MCU star then responds: “My thoughts entirely. Let’s be certain before we pronounce her a witch.”
Of course, these were, at the time, private text messages between two friends, but whether they’re demeaning or outright abusive is up for debate. This court case is really important to Johnny Depp, too, the outcome of which will reportedly determine if Disney will ask him back as Captain Jack Sparrow in future Pirates of the Caribbean movies. But for now, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.