I’ve married her, so now I can punch her Judge told of Depp’s ‘joke’ to Amber’s friend on the day they wed
‘By that time I knew he was hitting her’ ‘I became scared for Amber’s life’
JOHNNY Depp said on the day he married Amber Heard: ‘Now I can punch her in the face and no one can do anything about it’, the High Court heard yesterday.
The Pirates of the Caribbean star cracked the ‘joke’ to TV presenter iO Tillett Wright, who described himself as Amber Heard’s best man, at the couple’s Bahamas wedding in February 2015.
Mr Tillett Wright said: ‘It was the first thing Johnny said to me after the ceremony. By then I knew he was hitting her.’
Depp was an alcoholic who ‘wouldn’t do a line of cocaine, he would do twelve’, and ‘when he got drunk, he was a monster’, the court heard.
Mr Tillett Wright told Mr Justice Nicol he begged Miss Heard to leave and feared Depp would kill her. He said: ‘It was as if she was suffering Stockholm syndrome.’
After Depp allegedly kicked Miss Heard on a private jet flight, Mr Tillett Wright found Depp at home where the actor ‘broke down in tears’. He added: ‘He talked about the monster, saying
“it wasn’t me; it was the monster”.’ Mr Tillett Wright addressed earlier claims that Miss Heard had once defecated in their bed, blaming the couple’s dog which had ‘faulty bowels’.
He said Miss Heard would not have done it as she was ‘faecal phobic’.
Earlier, the best friend of the American actress told of how Miss Heard had yelled: ‘Help, please call for help’ after Depp smashed her in the face with a phone.
Raquel ‘ Rocky’ Pennington said she walked into the pair’s LA penthouse and the actor turned on her saying: ‘Get the f*** out of here’.
Miss Heard alleges Depp hurled a phone at her face during the incident on May 21, 2016.
The claims have been made as part of an ongoing libel trial between Depp and The Sun newspaper over a 2018 headline calling him a ‘wife beater’.
In evidence heard yesterday, Miss Pennington, who lived next door, said: ‘Amber was yelling “help” at me.. I said, “Is everything ok?”.
‘Amber said “No. Help, please. He hit me with the phone. Please help. Please call for help.”
‘ He was yelling obscenities, shouting “Oh, poor her. A little phone hit you. Poor f***ing you. Oh, oh, so sorry”.’ Miss Pennington said Depp then started ‘smashing’ things before storming out.
‘He had a wine bottle in his hand and was sloshing wine everywhere. Amber’s belongings had been ransacked, framed photos had been smashed, and glass broken.’
Giving evidence via videolink from LA, Miss Pennington said Miss Heard had ‘many times’ confided that she had been ‘physically and verbally’ abused by Depp.
On December 15, 2015, she said Miss Heard summoned her after alleging Depp had headbutted her and ripped out clumps of her hair. She arrived to find her with a swollen nose and lip.
‘She told me “I couldn’t breathe... I thought he was actually going to kill me”,’ she said. When Miss Pennington claimed she took photos, Eleanor Laws QC, for Depp, said: ‘ There were no injuries, were there?’ Miss Pennington said: ‘That is not right.’ Miss Pennington said she ‘became really scared for Amber’s life’ following the Australia incident in March 2015 when her friend returned with ‘gashes on her arms... from her wrists to her elbows’. She said she feared Depp might ‘accidentally kill’ Amber in a drink and drugs stupor.
Depp claims Miss Heard’s allegations are a ‘hoax’ and has branded her a gold-digger who put together a ‘dossier’ of evidence to blackmail him in their divorce. Earlier, it emerged that Miss Heard got a friend to monitor her movie sex scenes to prove to paranoid Depp that ‘nothing went on other than strict work’. Acting coach and friend Kristina Sexton told the High Court: ‘She told me she wanted to make sure that nothing was peeking out of the lingerie and no hands went anywhere they shouldn’t.
She said she wanted me there so that she had a witness for Johnny.’ Controlling Depp tried to block his wife taking ‘whore parts’ in movies and would ‘rather destroy’ her than let her flee the abusive marriage, Miss Sexton claimed. ‘He didn’t want her doing sex scenes because “he doesn’t want his woman to be a slut”,’ said Miss Sexton, who worked with Miss Heard from 2010 to 2016.
Miss Sexton said she started to noticed marks and bruises on Miss Heard’s arm and told her: ‘I know you’re not telling me everything...is he hitting you?’ but she would look down or away and not answer.
When the actress finally ‘opened the floodgates’ and revealed her years of domestic violence, she told Miss Sexton: ‘Johnny will never let me go. He would rather destroy me than let me leave.’
Depp allegedly boasted he could cheat drugs tests demanded by Hollywood insurance companies, saying: ‘ I don’t have to worry about that stuff. Insurance tests are easy to fake.’
Depp’s lawyers produced a video which they said proved Miss Heard’s sister Whitney had lied in court when she said Amber had never hit her.
The footage shows Whitney’s friends asking if ‘Amber beat your a**’ and apparently viewing injuries. Whitney told the court the siblings’ argument had been verbal only. Depp has denied ever hitting any woman.