I need more whitey stuff
Claims Depp pleaded with assistant to get him cocaine and ‘happy pills’
JOHNNY Depp begged his assistant for ‘ happy pills’ days before he allegedly assaulted wife Amber Heard in a drug-fuelled rage, it was claimed yesterday.
The Hollywood actor sent a string of text messages to Nathan Holmes, including one that said: ‘Please, I’m in bad, bad shape. Say nothing to nobody.’
He pleaded for ‘ happy pills’ and ‘whitey stuff’, which lawyers claim meant ecstasy tablets and cocaine.
The messages were revealed during the preliminary stages of a High Court libel battle between Depp and The Sun newspaper over an article which called him a ‘wife beater’.
Miss Heard, 34, who divorced Depp the year after they were sent, is expected to be a key witness for the newspaper.
The US actress has claimed Depp, whom she met on the set of 2011 film The Rum Diary, assaulted her during a trip to Australia which she compared to a ‘three-day hostage situation’. Miss Heard has said the
Pirates Of The Caribbean star was physically and verbally abusive during their two-year marriage, and that it was worse after he had been drinking or taking drugs.
Depp, 57, strenuously denies that he was abusive and is expected to call two previous partners – actresses Vanessa Paradis and Winona Ryder – to help him fight the allegations. Both say he was never violent towards them.
The texts between Depp and Mr Holmes were read to the High Court by Adam Wolanski QC, lawyer for The Sun newspaper.
They were sent in February 2015 while Depp and Miss Heard were in Australia, days before she says he attacked her. Depp texted: ‘ We should have more happy pills. Can you???’ Mr Wolanski said this message was ‘obviously a reference’ to ecstasy. Mr Holmes replied that he could get them, and Depp responded: ‘Woo-hoo.’
In later messages, Mr Holmes referred to leaving ‘ 2g in the jar’, and offered to get more.
Mr Wolanski said that meant two grammes of cocaine. Miss Heard has told the court she confronted her husband about his drug use a few days later. He took around eight ecstasy tablets from a bag of pills and stayed up drinking all night.
He subsequently assaulted her several times, leaving her with a broken lip, a swollen nose and cuts all over her body, she has claimed.
Depp later texted Mr Holmes, saying: ‘May I be ecstatic again?’ On the same day, he texted: ‘Need more whitey stuff ASAP.’
Mr Wolanski said Depp showed ‘increasing exasperation’ that he could not get drugs immediately.
Depp has admitted battling alcoholism and an addiction to prescription painkillers but said he was sober at the time of the Australia trip until he was driven to start drinking again by Miss Heard’s ‘prolonged and extreme rage’.
He has said she was physically abusive towards him during their relationship and that she was ‘a regular heavy user of drugs’.
His lawyer David Sherborne denied he had taken ecstasy or that the text messages were him asking to be supplied with drugs.
He said the text messages were ‘common banter’.
Lawyers for NGN, the publisher of The Sun, asked the High Court to throw out his libel claim, saying Depp had deliberately tried to withhold the text messages.
Mr Sherborne said the texts were disclosed as part of legal action in the US, where Depp is suing Miss Heard for libel over a column she
‘Clear reference to ecstasy’ ‘Prolonged and extreme rage’
wrote in a newspaper. In papers filed to the High Court, lawyers for Depp say Miss Heard was caught on CCTV ‘intimately engaged’ with a man they claim was her former co-star James Franco in May 2016, hours after Miss Heard claims Depp threw a phone at her.
On the same day, she was alleged to have had a text exchange with Tesla entrepreneur Elon Musk. Mr Musk has said he dated the actress after her split from Depp but denies he was involved in a ‘three-way affair’ with Miss Heard and model Cara Delevingne.
Depp’s lawyers said Mr Musk visited Miss Heard regularly late at night during her marriage when her husband was away and claim she gave him a key to the couple’s penthouse. Depp is suing NGN and The Sun’s executive editor Dan Wootton. A three-week libel trial is due to start at the High Court in London on July 7.
The pre-trial hearing continues.