Why Johnny Depp’s new song could see him back in court
A song from Johnny Depp’s collaborative album with Jeff Beck could land him in trouble following claims of plagiarism from a convicted murderer.
Entertainment
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Johnny Depp is back in hot water, this time accused of plagerising lyrics written by a convicted murderer for his new album, 18, according to Rolling Stone.
The magazine reports the song, Sad Motherf***ing Parade, uses several lines from a poem believed to be written by Slim Wilson, who served time in prison for murder and armed robbery.
Wilson’s poetry and toasts were documented by folklorist Bruce Jackson in 1964, during the former’s incarceration at Missouri State Penitentiary.
The works were included in Mr Jackson’s 1974 book, Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me.
Two years later Mr Jackson released an album of the same name that featured Wilson performing his works.
In the toast, Hobo Benn, Wilson writes:
Ladies of culture and beauty so refined, is there one among you that would grant me wine?
I’m raggedy I know, but I have no stink
And God bless the lady that’ll buy me a drink.
Heavy-hipted Hattie turned to Nadine with a laugh
And said, “What that funky motherf***er really need, child, is a bath.”
The first, second, and third lines appear in Depp and Beck’s song, according to Mr Jackson, who told Rolling Stone there were only two lines he could find in the entire piece that weren’t plagiarised.
“Everything else is from Slim’s performance in my book,” the author and University of Buffalo professor told Rolling Stone.
“I’ve never encountered anything like this. I’ve been publishing stuff for 50 years, and this is the first time anybody has just ripped something off and put his own name on it.”
On the album, the song lyrics have been credited to Beck and Depp, with no reference to Wilson or Mr Jackson.
While the original authorship of Hobo Ben may be impossible to trace, due to it being passed on through competitive oral tradition, Mr Jackson’s son Michael, said they were exploring possible legal options.
“They do not reflect the actual authorship of those lyrics,” he said.
“It’s just not plausible, in my opinion, that Johnny Depp or anybody else could have sat down and crafted those lyrics without almost wholly taking them from some version of my father’s recording and/or book where they appeared.”
JOHNNY DEPP ‘CRIED’ FOLLOWING ACCUSATION
Johnny Depp was said to have “cried” when his assistant told him he “kicked” Amber Heard during a fight on a private jet, according to text messages.
Newly unsealed court documents revealed the claims of alleged domestic violence incidents, which Depp has continued to deny.
In the latest to be unearthed from the trove of text messages within the new documents, Depp’s then assistant Stephen Deuters texted Heard after a flight the pair took in 2014.
“If someone was truly honest with him about how bad it really was, he would be appalled,” Deuters texted Heard the morning after, according to documents viewed by The Daily Beast.
“I’m sad he does not have a better way to really know the severity of his actions yesterday. Unfortunately for me, I remember them in full, in full detail, everything that happened. He was appalled, when I told him he kicked you, he cried.”
The texts were among those included in the trial Depp lost in the United Kingdom, but they were excluded in the United States trial.
According to the unsealed documents, Depp texted Heard after the incident calling himself a “f--king savage”, a “lunatic”, and that he once again found himself “in a place of shame and regret”.
“Of course I am sorry...I will never do it again...My illness somehow crept up and grabbed me...I feel so bad for letting you down.”
LAWYERS CLAIM DEPP SUFFERED SEX ISSUE
Johnny Depp suffers from erectile dysfunction, which may have contributed to his alleged violent behaviour, lawyers for Amber Heard claimed in newly unsealed court documents.
“Though Mr Depp would rather not disclose his erectile dysfunction condition, such condition absolutely is relevant to sexual violence, including Mr. Depp’s anger and use of a bottle to rape Amber Heard,” Heard’s lawyers claimed in the documents filed on March 28.
Depp has consistently denied Heard’s allegations of rape and violence.
Heard’s lawyers went on to claim that Depp’s alleged penile problem would make it “more probable” that he would become “angry or agitated” in encounters with the Aquaman star and cause him to “resort to a bottle.”
Thousands of pages of documents filed in the bombshell defamation case were unsealed over the weekend, including text messages between the actor and Marilyn Manson, and his team’s apparent attempt to bring up what they describe as his ex-wife’s “brief stint as an exotic dancer” at trial.
The court documents, published online and verified by the New York Post, lay out of a series of behind-the-scenes moves by lawyers from both sides to get certain claims presented to the jury in Fairfax, Virginia.
One 965-page document filed on March 28 details Heard’s opposition to a series of motions made by Depp’s lawyers, including one to exclude his medical history from the trial and others that asked to present potentially damaging information about the actress.
Lawyers for the Aquaman star said Depp sought to inappropriately bring up “Amber Heard’s sister Whitney’s reality show video” and “Whitney and Amber’s past romantic relationships,” the filing states.
Depp, 59, also wanted to tell the jury about “Amber’s brief stint as an exotic dancer years before she met Mr Depp,” her lawyers wrote, as they also opposed “Mr Depp attempting to frivolously and maliciously suggest or imply that Ms Heard was at one time an escort.”
The documents also showed new text messages between Depp and rocker Manson, born Brian Warner, who has been accused of sexual abuse and grooming, including by his former fiancee Evan Rachel Wood, whom he sued for defamation in March.
In a 2016 text, Manson allegedly wrote, “I got an amber 2.0” and also “Lindsay [Ursich] just pulled an amber on me…please delete”
Depp responds, “I been reading A LOT of material on that and sociopathic behaviour…it is f**king real my brother!! My ex-c**t is goddamn TEXTBOOK!!!,” according to the document.
Then Manson, in an apparent reference to an incident where the police were called to Depp and Heard’s shared Los Angeles apartment in 2016, wrote, “I got a serious police amber type scenario with L’s family. I’m f–king stressing. I don’t know if you are back but I need asylum somewhere because I think the cops might be headed my way,” the filing states.
Heard’s lawyers alleged that Depp and Manson went on “drug binges” together, including in the days before the actress arrived in Australia and the two got into a now-infamous fight that ended with the actor losing the tip of his right middle finger.
The filings also include a lengthy passage of allegations that Heard’s lawyer Elaine Bredehoft claims she was unable to ask Depp’s former agent Tracey Jacobs about, including that the actor “lied to the LAPD.”
Included in the list of “relevant and damaging information” excluded at trial was that “Mr. Depp appeared on TV drunk and stoned, to the point that Disney studio executives called Ms. Jacobs asking ‘What the hell was wrong with your client,’” the documents states. It is not clear what alleged appearance the lawyer was referencing in the filing.
Heard’s team also claimed that “these same issues appeared during the filming of Pirates 5 and Disney told Ms. Jacobs the conduct was not ‘going to be tolerated,’ Disney was ‘not going to put up with this’ and that ‘there was no love between Johnny and Disney, given the Pirates five situation.’”
Documents also show how Depp’s lawyers worked to exclude testimony regarding the actor’s arrest record and ongoing litigation for other cases, included a lawsuit accusing him of assault that was settled in July.
His lawyers, who were successful in their argument, said “it will serve no purpose other than to prejudice him in front of the jury” and that Heard would use it to “proffer evidence that portrays Mr. Depp as a violent man.”
In an interview with NBC News following the jury’s verdict in Depp’s favour, Heard lamented evidence excluded from the trial, including “a binder worth of years of notes dating back to 2011 from the very beginning of my relationship that were taken by my doctor, who I was reporting the abuse to.”
“How could they make a judgment, how could they not come to that conclusion,” Heard said, referencing the evidence from which the jury was shielded. Reps for Heard did not return a request for comment. Depp’s reps did not comment.
HEARD IGNORED LEGAL ADVICE TO PURSUE MULTIMILLION DOLLAR PAYOUT
Amber Heard walked away from a multimillion-dollar divorce payout from Johnny Depp, unsealed court documents reveal.
Documents seen by the Daily Beast show Heard’s lawyers begged her to pursue her ex for “tens of millions of dollars”.
Depp had shot the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie during their marriage and therefore Heard was entitled to half the income, her lawyers argued.
But the 36-year-old actress refused, leading her lawyers to tell her via email that she was being “amazingly true to your word that this is not about the money”.
The pre-trial documents for the defamation case also reveal Depp’s legal team wanted to show nude photos of Heard and evidence of her “brief stint as an exotic dancer” years before she met Depp, according to the Daily Beast.
However, the judge in the defamation trial denied the inclusion of any evidence related to their divorce proceedings.
Depp filed a $A74m defamation lawsuit against Heard in 2019 after she wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post about surviving domestic violence. She countersued him for $A148m in 2020.
While Heard did not name Depp in the piece he alleged that his ex-wife, to whom he was married from 2015 to 2017, fabricated abuse allegations in an attempt to score a large divorce settlement and thus damaged his career.
Depp in June won an award of $10m in the defamation case against Heard, while she won $2m in damages after countersuing.
The Aquaman actress is appealing against the verdict of the jury trial, which was live-streamed to millions and featured lurid and intimate details about the former couple’s private lives.
Depp previously lost a libel case against the British tabloid The Sun in London in 2020 for calling him a “wife-beater”.
Heard said she doesn’t have enough cash to pay Depp.
She may have raised a portion after recently selling her Yucca Valley house in California’s desert for $1.05m, reports TMZ.
The development comes after Mickey Rourke labelled Heard a “gold digger”.
“(I’ve known) Johnny for many years, but I don’t really know him intimately,” the Sin City star, 69, said on Piers Morgan Uncensored.
When Morgan asked whether Rourke believed Heard was a gold digger, the actor replied, “Abso-f--king-lately. Absolutely.”
– additional reporting AFP
Originally published as Why Johnny Depp’s new song could see him back in court
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