Depp ‘held wife’s dog out of car window’
Johnny Depp dangled his former wife’s pet dog out of a speeding car window during an argument in which he assaulted her, the High Court has been told. The actor allegedly tried to set fire to one of Amber Heard’s paintings in March 2013, then on the way to a film set the next morning, he held the actress’s terrier Pistol out of the car window. The claims were made during the actor’s libel case against NGN, publishers of The Sun, after it described him as a “wife beater”.
‘Half of you, I love. Madly. The other half scares me. I can’t take him. I wish I could, but I can’t’
JOHNNY DEPP dangled his former wife’s pet dog out of a speeding car window during a furious row in which he physically assaulted her, a court has been told.
During an argument early in their relationship in March 2013, the Hollywood actor grew so angry with Amber Heard that he also allegedly tried to set fire to a painting she owned, accusing her of having an affair with its painter, the female artist Tasya van Ree.
The High Court in London yesterday heard that as the row continued on the way to a film set the next morning, Depp – alleged to have still been high on cocaine and whisky – held the actress’s tiny terrier Pistol out of the car window and howled.
A few weeks later he allegedly sent a series of texts to his friend Paul Bettany, the British actor, in which he talked about killing Heard.
The claims were made during a libel case the actor has been pursuing against NGN, publishers of The Sun newspaper, after it described him in April 2018 as a “wife beater”.
In a series of exchanges in court Depp repeatedly denied slapping and hitting Heard and accused her of creating a “hoax” about his behaviour.
In presenting the publisher’s case to the court, Sasha Wass QC, The Sun’s defence barrister, laid out allegations surrounding the attack by Depp in March 2013, which she said had been sparked by Heard laughing at one of his tattoos.
Depp had modified a tattoo that had spelt out “Winona Forever” – a reference to his former partner, the actress Winona Ryder – to read “Wino Forever”, something Heard had mocked after he allegedly resumed drinking and taking drugs.
Addressing Depp in the witness box, Ms Wass said: “You then slapped Ms Heard across the face, the first time you used violence against her.”
Ms Wass accused him of striking Heard a second time during the argument at her LA home, this time with the back of his hand. Depp said: “That’s patently untrue. That didn’t happen… I did not hit Ms Heard.”
As the row continued, Depp allegedly tried to set fire to the painting by van Ree, Heard’s former partner, accusing her of secretly continuing the relationship. The court was shown a picture of lines of cocaine and alcohol said to have been consumed by Depp during the argument.
Depp admitted there had been “several arguments” about van Ree but denied trying to set the painting on fire. He also denied bruising Heard’s arm during the argument, seen in a photograph presented to the court.
It was claimed the next morning he continued drinking whisky and taking cocaine to such an extent that he was late seeing Keith Richards, the Rolling Stones guitarist, about whom he was making a documentary.
Ms Wass said when Heard and some of Depp’s entourage finally managed to get him into a car to drive to the film set, he held her pet dog Pistol out of the window and made howling noises.
Depp said: “‘I can say it’s an enduring image but it’s an absolute, utter falsity, it’s fraudulent. I don’t think hanging a small defenceless dog that weighed three pounds out of the window at speed is my idea of fun, even though my sense of humour is rather unique.”
The actor admitted joking about putting Pistol in a microwave, but said this was a running joke within the Heard family because of its size.
Pistol was one of two dogs Heard tried to smuggle into Australia in 2015 while travelling to see Depp, who was filming in the country. Charges were dropped after the couple apologised.
Weeks later, matters allegedly took a darker turn when Depp sent a text to Bettany, described in court as his “drug buddy”, saying: “Let’s burn Amber.”
In another text, Depp is said to have written: “Let’s drown her before we burn her. I will f--- her burnt corpse after we’ve burnt her to make sure she’s dead.” Depp explained the text by saying he felt “resentful” at Heard telling him to cut his drug and alcohol consumption. This led him to refer to her in a text as a “lesbian camp counsellor” – for which he apologised in court.
Extracts were also read out from an email Heard wrote to Depp, but which was never sent, in which she described him as a Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde character. She wrote: “Half of you, I love. Madly. The other half scares me. I can’t take him. I wish I could, but I can’t.”
In it she decried his drug-fuelled binges, saying: “Sometimes the hangover is just as bad as the full-on disco bloodbath I’ve come to expect.”
Depp dismissed her accusations as hoax. “It appears to me that Ms Heard was building a dossier very early on that appears to be an insurance policy,” he said.
The court also heard claims that during an argument brought on by the attention that Heard was being paid by a female friend called Kelly-sue, Depp damaged fittings inside a trailer at the Hicksville Trailer Park in California.
Ms Wass said: “You hit Ms Heard, you pushed her around. That is how the trailer got trashed.”
Depp said: “That is not the case ma’am.”
He also denied kicking Heard on a flight to LA in 2014, saying that to do so would have been the action of “a sick person, an animal, a savage”.
He did admit he had become jealous when Heard worked with actor James Franco on The Adderall Diaries in 2014. But he excused this by saying Heard had previously described Franco as “creepy and rapey”, from her experience of working with him on a film called Pineapple Express.
He said: “It shocked me that she was suddenly so friendly and happy with him. She told me many things that were very negative about Mr Franco and that he had tried to kiss her and made sexual advances toward her on a previous film they had done together, and that she said he was a creep and that he was a rapist.” He later confirmed that “rapey” was the term Heard had used.
The hearing continues.