Alleged abuser Johnny Depp is in the midst of two concurrent lawsuits: one against ex-wife Amber Heard in Fairfax County, Virginia, filed after she published a 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post about how abusive men stay protected without mentioning Depp by name, and another in the UK against News Group Newspapers, owner of The Sun tabloid, for libel—they published an article in 2018 which accused Depp of assaulting Heard while they were still married, Vanity Fair reports. On Wednesday, Depp appeared in London’s High Court to address the latter. There, a handful of extremely heinous text messages Depp allegedly sent to his friend, actor Paul Bettany, were read aloud—obtained after Depp’s former legal team accidentally sent 70,000 of Depp’s texts to The Sun’s lawyers.
“Let’s burn Amber,” Depp allegedly wrote in 2013, according to Page Six. “Let’s drown her before we burn her!!! I will fuck her burnt corpse afterwards to make sure she is dead.”
In May 2014, Depp allegedly sent another, mostly incoherent string of text messages, the same information used by The Sun’s attorney Adam Wolanski as corroborating evidence for a particular allegation of abuse—when he allegedly kicked Heard in the back and threw a boot at her:
“I’m gonna properly stop the booze thing, darling… Drank all night before I picked Amber up to fly to LA, this past Sunday…Ugly, mate.
No food for days…powders…half a bottle of whiskey, a thousand red bull and vodkas, pills, 2 bottles of Champers on plane and what do you get..???
An angry, aggro Injun in a fuckin’ blackout, screaming obscenities and insulting any fuck who got near…I’m done.
I am admittedly too fucked in the head to spray my rage at the one I love…For little reason, as well I’m too old to be that guy But, pills are fine!!!”
Depp’s libel lawsuit hearing will begin in London High Court on March 23.
Update, 3:07 pm: Adam Waldman, Johnny Depp’s lawyer, has sent Jezebel a statement:
This is why Johnny Depp seeks justice in court and not the media. The media will not report that at the end of a demonstrated abuse victim’s single frustrated text to a friend, Johnny confides to Paul Bettany that he could in fact never “spray my rage at the one I love” and says he will use pills instead to numb the pain. This is the best text of 70,000 the desperate Sun tabloid could muster to save their skin.
Correction: A previous version of this post erroneously identified Depp’s lawyer as Adam Weinstein. His name is Adam Waldman.