Actor’s libel case against Sun over term ‘wife-beater’ begins in UK high court
Johnny Depp has admitted excessive drinking, drug-taking and trashing hotel rooms, but denied accusations by his former wife Amber Heard that he had been violent towards her in his libel battle against the Sun, which has accused him of being a “wife-beater”.
Lawyers for Depp said the accusations of violence made by Heard were “invented” and he strenuously denied that he had ever been violent towards her.
Giving evidence at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, Depp repeatedly insisted he had never been a violent individual but was someone who aspired to be a “southern gentleman”.
On the opening day of a three-week trial, the 57-year-old Hollywood actor disputed accounts given by Heard of domestic violence during their marriage.
The legal action has been brought by Depp after the Sun and its executive editor, Dan Wootton, published an article describing him as a wife-beater based on allegations Heard had made. Heard, 34, who was in court, is due to give evidence for the newspaper in the coming days.
Written submissions from the parties were released as the hearings began. In one witness statement, Depp claimed Heard had repeatedly punched him in the face and partially severed his finger by throwing a vodka bottle.
In another statement, the Pirates of the Caribbean and Edward Scissorhands star described her as a “calculating, diagnosed borderline personality” and narcissist who had married him to advance her career.
David Sherborne, Depp’s barrister, said Heard had “invented these stories of serious violence. He is not and never has been a wife-beater.”
“Indeed, he says that it was Ms Heard who was the one who started physical fights, who punched or hit him (and there was little he could really do to stop this); she was the abuser, not him.”
In a statement Depp also said that he had decided to divorce Heard after she or “possibly one of her friends” defecated in their marital bed, and she dismissed it as “a harmless prank”. He said it was the final straw in their deteriorating marriage.
A statement submitted by News Group newspapers, the publishers of the Sun, said it would demonstrate “that the description of Mr Depp as a ‘wife-beater’ is entirely accurate and truthful”.
It added: “The sting of the articles is correct – namely that [Depp] beat his wife Amber Heard causing her to suffer significant injury and on occasion leading to her fearing for her life.”
The paper said Heard “was forging her own way in the acting profession and was not content to play the role of a supplicant consort. As a result of her having her own career, disputes between the two increasingly arose where Ms Heard’s professional life clashed with Mr Depp’s desire to dominate the relationship”.
After Depp entered the witness box, the accusations and counter-accusations intensified. The hearing was shown a short clip filmed by Heard on a mobile phone that appeared to show Depp drinking wine early in the day and smashing bottles or glass in their kitchen.
At one stage Depp admitted he had been spending more than $30,000 (£24,000) a month on wine before he went into rehab. But, he added, “Yes, I drank to excess but drinking to great excess doesn’t mean that you are out of control … Violence is not something I go looking for.”
He had avoided confrontation in his relationship with Heard, he recalled. “Whenever these situations would escalate, I would try and go to my own corner. I wanted to separate before things got out of hand.”
Questioned about drug use by Sasha Wass QC, for the Sun, Depp said he had first started taking his mother’s “nerve pills” at the age of 11. He stood by an earlier magazine interview he had given in which he said: “I did every kind of drugs there were by the age of 14.”
He denied that he had ever indulged in “destructive behaviour”. He had taken drugs initially, he said, because it was the “only thing I found to numb the pain”. He had not taken ketamine but agreed he had used cocaine, ecstasy, LSD, mushrooms and cannabis.
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Wass suggested Depp was someone who often expressed his anger by “trashing” hotel rooms. She took him through one incident when he was said to have inflicted almost $10,000 worth of damage on a New York hotel room.
“I don’t know the exact amount of damage,” Depp answered. “I made a few dents. Yes.” It had been the culmination of a “particularly bad couple of days”, he said, because he had “been screwed over by a friend”.
“I was angry,” he added. “That didn’t mean I had an anger problem. On that occasion I chose to express my anger.” He denied that it had been because he had quarrelled with a girlfriend.
His earlier relationship with actor Ellen Barkin was also examined by Wass. She accused him in a statement of throwing a bottle in her direction.
Depp replied: “Miss Barkin’s statement about what she believed happened is not what happened. I don’t want to call anyone a liar but I can tell you that never happened.”
Asked about his view of himself, Depp occasionally paused for thought and volunteered personal reflections. “When one’s aspiration is to be a great gentleman, to be a great southern gentleman, that doesn’t exclude you from the family of humans who have moments of frustration,” he stated in one answer.
Heard’s spokesperson said in a statement outside court before the trial: “Amber was never asked for these proceedings to take place. Amber obtained a domestic violence restraining order against Depp back in 2016 and has tried to move on with her life.
“It is Johnny Depp who brought these proceedings against a British newspaper and has dragged her to the UK courts to give evidence on some of the most distressing moments of her life.”
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