Hollywood Actor Johnny Depp begged his assistant to get him ‘happy pills’ and ‘whitey stuff’ days before he is alleged to have assaulted ex-wife Amber Heard in a ‘three-day hostage situation’, the High Court has today heard.
In the latest twist in his libel battle with British tabloid newspaper, The Sun, lawyers for the paper have sensationally asked High Court judges to throw out the star’s claim, alleging the 57-year-old failed to disclosure texts which allegedly show him trying to buy drugs in Australia.
The Pirates of the Caribbean actor is suing the tabloid’s publisher, News Group Newspapers (NGN), and its executive editor, Dan Wootton, over an article in April 2018 which referred to the star as a ‘wife-beater’.
The article related to allegations made his by ex-partner, actress Amber Heard, 34, that he was violent towards her during their marriage.
Depp strenuously denies the allegations. He is suing Ms Heard in a separate libel case in the US.
Johnny Depp (pictured right), 57, is suing the tabloid’s publisher, News Group Newspapers (NGN), and its executive editor, Dan Wootton, over the article in April 2018 which referred to the star as a ‘wife-beater. Following claims by his ex-wife, actress Amber Heard, 34, that he was violent towards her during their marriage. Depp strenuously denies the allegations
The UK libel trial, set to take place in July at the High Court in London, has been delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
But at a hearing today, NGN’s lawyers said Mr Depp’s claim should be struck out, claiming he deliberately withheld text messages they say show him trying to obtain ‘MDMA and other narcotics’ while in Australia in 2015.
NGN’s barrister, Adam Wolanski QC, told the court that his client had recently obtained a series of text messages between Mr Depp and his assistant Nathan Holmes from Ms Heard’s American lawyers.
Mr Wolanski said that on March 7, Mr Depp texted Mr Holmes: ‘May I be ecstatic again?’
The barrister said that was ‘a reference to ecstasy’ and that the use of the word ‘again’ meant it was ‘a request for further ecstasy’.
On the same day, Mr Depp texted Mr Holmes to say ‘need more whitey stuff ASAP’, which Mr Wolanski said ‘must be a reference to cocaine’.
Mr Wolanski said subsequent texts showed Mr Depp’s ‘increasing exasperation about the fact that he doesn’t have any drugs there and then’.
Mr Depp texted Mr Holmes to say: ‘F**king give me the goddamn numbers, I will take care of this s**t, don’t bother.’
Later, Mr Depp texted Mr Holmes to say he did not want anyone to ‘lecture’ him about drugs.
Mr Wolanski told the court that it was Ms Heard’s case that it was her ‘lecturing him (Mr Depp) about drugs that set him off’.
Adam Wolanski said the ‘Australia drugs texts’ were highly relevant to the case, saying: ‘It is the defendants’ case that drugs and alcohol had an influence on the claimant’s behaviour towards Ms Heard.’
He referred to ‘the Australia episode’ in March 2015, described as ‘a three-day hostage situation’, in which Johnny Depp is said to have ‘subjected Amber Heard to… a three-day ordeal of physical assaults’.
Mr Wolanski said Mr Depp’s ‘rage on that occasion was triggered by Ms Heard seeing him use drugs and challenging him about his use of drugs’.
Mr Depp (right) has brought separate libel proceedings against Ms Heard (left) in the US, which the court has previously heard are ‘ongoing’
Ms Heard claims she ‘confronted’ Mr Depp after he ‘took out a bag of MDMA’ and said it was ‘not on his ‘not allowed’ list’.
She alleges Mr Depp then ‘pushed, slapped her and shoved her to the ground’ before she ‘retreated to a locked bedroom’.
NGN’s barrister told the court that Mr Depp said: ‘I did not take MDMA or any other drugs in early March 2015 at the time to which the allegation refers… nor did Ms Heard find a bag of MDMA pills at the time.’
Mr Depp said that, on the second day of their 2015 visit to Australia, Ms Heard was ‘screaming at me abusively’ and that he ‘can’t remember exactly what she was saying under the stress of the situation’.
But Adam Wolanski referred to Amber Heard’s evidence that Mr Depp, by the second day in Australia, had taken most of the ’10 or so’ pills she had seen and was ‘drinking Jack Daniel’s from the bottle’.
Ms Heard claimed Mr Depp then took more of the pills and ‘chased them down with red wine… from the bottle’.
Referring to an incident in which Mr Depp severed the top of a finger, Ms Heard said she would be ‘very surprised’ if the actor could remember events because he was in such a state, Mr Wolanski told the court.
In her evidence, she said: ‘He was completely out of his mind and out of control.’
However, the barrister said Mr Depp ‘expressly denies’ that he took MDMA, that Ms Heard found pills and that there was any conversation between them about the drugs during that time in Australia.
Mr Depp ‘expressly denies’ that he took MDMA, that Ms Heard found pills and that there was any conversation between them about the drugs during that time in Australia.
Mr Wolanksi referred to texts between Mr Depp and Mr Holmes on February 27, in which Mr Depp said: ‘We should have more happy pills – can you?’
The barrister added that ‘happy pills’ was ‘obviously a reference to MDMA’.
He continued that, after Mr Holmes said he could get them, Mr Depp responded: ‘Woo hoo.’
Mr Wolanski said the exchange showed ‘Mr Depp asking Mr Holmes to supply him with ecstasy pulls just days before the incident in Australia’.
He also referred to messages sent on March 2, 2015, ‘just before the first day of the Australia ‘three-day hostage-taking situation’, as Ms Heard describes it’.
Mr Depp texted Mr Holmes to ask ‘where’s the other one?’, to which Mr Holmes replied: ‘There was 2g in that jar.’
Mr Wolanski said: ‘That is a reference to grams, grams of coke.’
NGN’s barrister told the court that ‘the failure to disclose them (the texts) in this case was a clear breach’ of a previous court order requiring Mr Depp to provide all documents from separate libel proceedings against Ms Heard in the US.
He added: ‘We want to deal with the claim on its merits, but the claim cannot be dealt with on its merits unless the claimant plays by the rules and complies with his disclosure obligations.’
‘In this case, there have been repeated and serious shortcomings in the claimant’s disclosure.’
However, the actor’s barrister, David Sherborne, said the libel case was ‘not about Mr Depp asking for drugs’, while the actor said in a witness statement he had been ‘open about challenges with alcoholism and addiction’ throughout his life.
Mr Sherborne, said: ‘The issue in this case is whether the defendants can prove that the claimant committed serious domestic violence and put Ms Heard in fear. It is not about whether Mr Depp asks for drugs.’
In his witness statement for the trial, Mr Depp said: ‘I have been open about my challenges with alcoholism and addiction throughout my life.
‘In fact, I started drinking and taking drugs when I was still a child. I am not in any way embarrassed to say this.’
Mr Depp, who appears to be observing the virtual hearing, said his ‘addiction over the years has been to Roxicodone pills, which are often referred to as ‘Roxies’ and which is one of the brand names for oxycodone which is is an opoid prescription painkiller’.
He added: ‘I have taken other drugs in my life and I did take other drugs during the course of our relationship but I never suffered with addiction from those drugs. Nor did any drug or alcohol ever make me undertake violence against anyone.’
Lawyers for NGN and Mr Wootton (pictured) have described Ms James as a ‘disaffected ex-employee’ who was giving ‘contentious and malicious evidence’
Mr Depp also said he and Ms Heard ‘took drugs together’, including MDMA, magic mushrooms and cocaine, but that ‘these were not common occurrences’.
Mr Sherborne added that NGN ‘had lost focus on what this claim is about and what the claimant has admitted – frankly – in his evidence’.
The barrister told the court: ‘The full trial of these appalling allegations, published in The Sun newspaper to millions of people, is of enormous importance to Mr Depp.’
He added: ‘It is time for the defendants to defend the allegations they published to millions of readers of their newspaper, and which they have persisted in very publicly throughout two years of litigation.’
Following a previous hearing in May, the High Court allowed the statements of Mr Depp’s former partners Vanessa Paradis and Winona Ryder, who both say he was ‘never’ violent to them, to be included.
Mr Justice Nicol also ruled that parts of evidence provided by Ms Heard’s former personal assistant Kate James, including an allegation that Ms Heard provided altered vaccination certificates for the couple’s pet dogs, could form part of Mr Depp’s case.
In 2014, Ms Heard and Mr Depp recorded a now infamous video apologising for taking their Yorkshire terriers, Pistol and Boo, into Australia illegally.
Ms Heard pleaded guilty to falsifying an immigration document to conceal the dogs in a private jet in 2014 and avoided jail under a deal which included appearing in the video warning others against breaking Australia’s strict quarantine laws.
Mr Sherborne previously told the court that Ms James, who worked for Ms Heard during the early years of her relationship with Mr Depp, claims Ms Heard asked her to lie about ‘the Australia dogs episode’.
Lawyers for NGN and Mr Wootton have described Ms James as a ‘disaffected ex-employee’ who was giving ‘contentious and malicious evidence’.
The three-week libel trial at the Royal Courts of Justice in London (pictured) – which was due to start in March, but was delayed because of the Covid-19 pandemic – is set to begin on July 7
The court has heard that Mr Depp intends to travel from his home in France to London to give evidence, while Ms Heard is believed to have already travelled to the UK from California.
The libel claim against NGN and Mr Wootton arises out of publication of 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 Depp has brought separate libel proceedings against Ms Heard in the US, which the court has previously heard are ‘ongoing’.
The pair met on the set of 2011 comedy The Rum Diary and married in Los Angeles in February 2015.
In May 2016, Ms Heard obtained a restraining order against Mr Depp after accusing him of abuse, which he denied.
The couple settled their divorce out of court in 2017, with Ms Heard donating her seven million US dollars (£5.5 million) settlement to charity.
The three-week libel trial at the Royal Courts of Justice in London – which was due to start in March, but was delayed because of the Covid-19 pandemic – is set to begin on July 7.