Johnny Depp wrote of drowning and burning Amber Heard, UK court hear

Extreme text messages from Johnny Depp to a colleague about his relationship with Amber Heard are tendered to a court.

Johnny Depp, left, and Amber Heard, right, arrive at the European premiere of their film, The Rum Diary, in London.

Actor Johnny Depp wrote of drowning and burning his ex-wife in messages sent to his fellow actor Paul Bettany, the High Court has been told.

Texts sent during his relationship with Amber Heard, 33, an actress and model, were said to be “very damaging” to his libel case against The Sun.

The couple met on the set of the 2011 film The Rum Diary and married in Los Angeles in February 2015. In May 2016 Heard obtained a restraining order against Depp after accusing him of abuse, which he denied. The couple settled their divorce out of court in 2017, with Heard donating her $US7 million settlement to charity.

Depp, 56, is suing the publishers of The Sun and its executive editor, Dan Wootton, over an article which alleged that he had been abusive to Heard. The Sun and The Times are part of News UK.

At a pretrial hearing that was attended by Depp, Mr Justice Nicol was told that 70,000 text messages were “accidentally” disclosed to the defendants by the actor’s former legal team. The messages included texts sent to Bettany in November 2013, in which Depp wrote: “Let’s burn Amber.” Another read: “Let’s drown her before we burn her!!! I will f*** her burnt corpse afterwards to make sure she is dead.”

Johnny Depp leaving the Royal Courts of Justice in London. The Hollywood actor is suing The Sun newspaper over claims he beat up his ex-wife Amber Heard. Picture: Peter Summers/Getty

Adam Wolanski, QC, representing The Sun, said that in a further text to Bettany in May 2014 Depp, the Pirates of the Caribbean actor, wrote: “I’m gonna properly stop the booze thing darling . . . Drank all night before I picked Amber up to fly to LA, this past Sunday.

“Ugly, mate . . . No food for days . . .  Powders . . . Half a bottle of whiskey, a thousand red bull and vodkas, pills, two bottles of champers on plane and what do you get . . .??? An angry, aggro Injun in a f***in’ blackout, screaming obscenities and insulting any f*** who got near  . . . I’m done.”

Mr Wolanski said the “significance” of the messages was that Depp’s case was that he was not drunk on the flight. Heard claims that he slapped and kicked her and threw his boot at her before passing out in the lavatory.

The barrister said there was another text message from Depp to Heard in March 2013, after an incident when she claims he assaulted her in a row over a painting, in which he referred to the evening in question as a “disco bloodbath” and “horrendous moment”.

Johnny Depp says in a witness statement that it was “physically impossible” for him to do the things Amber Heard has accused him of.

David Sherborne, representing Depp, said there was “no single smoking gun” in any of the evidence disclosed so far that supported Heard’s claims that Depp was violent. He said that

Depp’s witness statement claimed that it was “physically impossible” for him to do the things Heard accused him of on the flight, and that two witnesses supported his account.

Depp, in blue-tinted glasses, sat behind his lawyers for the hearing. He denies the allegations of domestic abuse and has accused Heard of being the “aggressor” in their relationship.

The court was told that he stopped using the London law firm Brown Rudnick on February 11 and is now represented by Schillings. His libel claim arises from an article in The Sun in April 2018 under the headline “Gone Potty: How can JK Rowling be ‘genuinely happy’ casting wife-beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?” Mr Sherborne said that the words wife-beater were later removed from the article online.

A libel trial is due to start on March 23 and last for ten days. Mr Sherborne said that the case would involve evidence that was “diametrically opposed”.

“It is black and white. One person, one side, is lying, and one is not,” he told the judge. “Obviously, we say that it is Ms Heard [who is lying], Mr Depp is 100 per cent clear about that.”

Depp has brought a separate libel case against Heard in the US, which Mr Sherborne said was in progress.

The Times