In the defamation trial of his ex-wife Amber Heard, Johnny Depp’s April 18 statement that he had never hit a woman is set aside. This statement can now at least be doubted.
After the end of the cross-examination with Heard, the statements of former friends of the ex-couple were on the agenda on Tuesday. They were questioned a few months ago and videotaped in the courtroom in Fairfax, Virginia.
Publicist and TV presenter Tillett Wright reported that Heard asked him for an urgent interview in May 2016. When Wright called her, she put it on speakerphone and said that Depp had accused her of pooping in his bed. Wright then started laughing out loud. He soon realized that this was no joke:
“I could hear him stomping down the stairs and heard what sounded like a fist being punched. Then the phone cracked and he said to her, ‘Ooops? You think I hit you? And what if I pull your hair out?’ Then the phone rang again – and heard her scream.”
Wright claimed to have called 911 from next door and then from New York, Heard’s friend Raquel Pennington; although of course Heard and Depp were in Los Angeles. Wright reported that he was close friends with the two from 2013 to 2015 and even lived at Depp’s mansion for a year. He said when Depp was sober, he would be “kind, generous and loyal.” But when drunk or high, he could be “incredibly mean and vicious.”
Wright saw himself as a kind of mediator between Depp and Heard. On one occasion, Depp got drunk by the pool while Heard cried indoors. Heard had referred to him as an “old bastard” during an argument. Depp, in turn, accused Heard of having no talent. If “her tits started sagging or she got wrinkles, no one would care about her anymore.” During the couple’s wedding in the Bahamas, Depp claimed he could “smack Heard in the face” anytime now that she’s his wife. Tillet Wright also stressed that he would never have been directly present at a physical altercation.
Raquel Pennington, who once considered herself a “close friend of Heard”, provided information about Heard’s tendency to violence. She met the actress in 2003, when she was 17 years old. This connection continued throughout Depp’s marriage and eventual divorce. After 2018, however, one would have “estranged”.
In her roughly 30-minute statement, Pennington reported that she and Heard initially shared a flat and that she later lived in the penthouse next door to the couple. She testified that in a specific case there had been an argument with Heard. The specific reason was an argument while preparing a meal for Thanksgiving. As one word exchanged for another, this argument became physical. Pushing ensued, and Pennington eventually noticed a scratch on her cheek as a result of being hit.
Pennington clarified that this incident was the only time she had had such an altercation with Heard. She also knows of no other incidents in which Heard hit someone.