Johnny Depp on 24-hour ‘bender’ when he went to Keith Richards set, court told

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Johnny Depp On 24-Hour ‘Bender’ When He Went To Keith Richards Set, Court Told
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Johnny Depp was on a 24-hour cocaine and whisky “bender” before going to the set of a Keith Richards documentary, Amber Heard told the High Court as she finished giving evidence in her ex-husband’s libel case against The Sun.

The Aquaman actress, 34, said Mr Depp, 57, refused to leave her house in March 2013 when he was supposed to be on the set of a documentary on The Rolling Stones’ guitarist that he was directing until she admitted to having two affairs – both of which she denies.

Giving evidence at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, Ms Heard said she had been “so in love” with Mr Depp and had “always held out hope” that he would “get clean”.

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She said the Pirates Of The Caribbean star was a “remarkable man” when he is “clean and sober”, but said that “other side of him was a monster” in her fourth and final day in the witness box on Thursday.

Johnny Depp, Amber Heard, Keith Richards and Whitney Heard during the filming of a documentary on Mr Richards on March 22 2013 (PA/PA Wire)
Johnny Depp, Amber Heard, Keith Richards and Whitney Heard during the filming of a documentary on Mr Richards on March 22 2013 (PA/PA Wire)

Ms Heard also said she met Mr Depp in July 2016, in breach of a domestic violence restraining order she had obtained, to try and resolve their divorce “in an amicable way” because she “didn’t want to expose the totality of what really happened to me”.

Mr Depp is suing The Sun’s publisher, News Group Newspapers (NGN), and its executive editor Dan Wootton over an April 2018 article which labelled him a “wife beater”.

On Thursday, Ms Heard was questioned about an incident in which the actress alleges Mr Depp hit her with the back of his hand, which caused her blood to hit the wall, after an argument about a painting by her ex-partner Tasya van Ree which was hanging in her house in Los Angeles.

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In her first witness statement, Ms Heard said the incident took place on March 8 2013, but she told the court she now considers the correct date of the “painting incident” to be March 22 2013, when the couple and Ms Heard’s sister, Whitney Henriquez, went to the set of the Keith Richards documentary.

Johnny Depp arrives at the High Court (Kirsty O’Connor/PA)
Johnny Depp arrives at the High Court (Kirsty O’Connor/PA)

Ms Heard said that, on that occasion, Mr Depp refused to leave her house and was “snorting lines of cocaine, drinking whisky and he was saying we really need to work this out, he wanted to get to the bottom of it”.

She added: “He wanted me to admit that I was having an affair with, not only Tasya van Ree, my ex-partner, but also a gentleman I hardly knew… he had just gotten it in his mind that I had these affairs and he wouldn’t leave until I admitted it.”

Ms Heard told the court: “I was so in love with Johnny at that time.

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“We had had a wonderful year together where he was sober and clean and that is how I got to know him.

“And Johnny, when he was like that, (is) generous, loving, he is a remarkable man when he is like that.

“I loved him and I didn’t want to lose that… the other side of him was a monster, but I always held out hope that he would get clean and sober.”

An artist’s impression of Ms Heard at the High Court (Elizabeth Cook/PA)
An artist’s impression of Ms Heard at the High Court (Elizabeth Cook/PA)

Ms Heard also gave evidence about an incident in Australia in March 2015, which she has previously described as a “three-day hostage situation”.

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Describing the scene of devastation she says she woke up to on the final day of the trip, Ms Heard told the court: “When I first opened the door that last morning, there was what appears to be mashed potatoes and gravy or something rubbed all over the door… I remember there was a bird, which scared me to death.”

She added: “I guess it had flown in through a broken window.”

Ms Heard continued: “I started seeing all this blood on the carpet… which I thought was (from) my feet, but there was drops of it.

“There was blood everywhere.

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A mirror in the house where Johnny Depp and Amber Heard stayed in Australia in March 2015 (PA/PA Wire)
A mirror in the house where Johnny Depp and Amber Heard stayed in Australia in March 2015 (PA/PA Wire)

“There was paint, what I thought was paint because it was a brownish colour, on the walls and then it started to become clear to me that they were letters or messages, words.

“It was heavy at first and then it kind of faded into a, like, milky brown colour.

“I started to make out words, English words, but it didn’t make sense.”

She added: “He had burned holes through some cushions and through some lampshades, blood and paint, more messages on cushions, there was a couch flipped over.

“It appeared to be he had set fire to one of the cushions because the carpet was burned around it a little.”

Ms Heard also said: “I found raw meat, at first I didn’t know what it was, on the floor.”

She said she “continued to find it … hidden in various places” around the house.

Ms Heard said that, when she got downstairs, Mr Depp was playing “death metal, blasting really loud” and she could see “tonnes of broken glass”.

Johnny Depp is suing NGN and The Sun’s executive editor Dan Wootton (Kirsty O’Connor/PA)
Johnny Depp is suing NGN and The Sun’s executive editor Dan Wootton (Kirsty O’Connor/PA)

She also described how she says Mr Depp lost the top of his middle finger, when he was “out of his mind” and “unrecognisable, even as the monster”.

Ms Heard told the court Mr Depp took “a mint green, cream Bakelite, plastic mounted phone on the wall” and smashed it “repeatedly, over and over again, into the wall, screaming at the top of his lungs”.

She said she did not want her allegations against Mr Depp to become public because “I didn’t want to put Johnny (in a position) where the world or his kids would know fully what he was or what he could do”.

Her sister Ms Henriquez gave evidence that she saw Mr Depp punch Ms Heard “really hard in the head … multiple times” in Los Angeles in March 2015.

Ms Henriquez admitted that Ms Heard punched Mr Depp on that occasion, but only did so “in my defence”.

She denied she had changed her evidence about the “painting incident” to “support and copy (her) sister” because the photograph of them on the Keith Richards set showed Ms Heard “with a clear face”.

Ms Henriquez is due to finish her evidence on Friday morning before Ms Heard’s acting coach Kristina Sexton appears by video link from Australia and Ms Heard’s friends iO Tillett Wright and Raquel “Rocky” Pennington give evidence from the US.

Mr Depp is suing over the publication of an article on April 27 2018 with the headline: “Gone Potty: How can JK Rowling be ‘genuinely happy’ casting wife beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?”

His lawyers say the article bore the meaning there was “overwhelming evidence” Mr Depp assaulted Ms Heard on a number of occasions and left her “in fear for her life”.

NGN is defending the article as true, and says Mr Depp was “controlling and verbally and physically abusive towards Ms Heard, particularly when he was under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs”.

The blockbuster case, the biggest English libel trial of the 21st century, is due to finish next week with closing submissions from both sides’ legal teams on Monday and Tuesday.

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