Johnny Depp has accused his ex-wife of “building a dossier” from early in their relationship as an “insurance policy for later”.
The high court heard details of an email written by Amber Heard to the star, which was never sent, in which she compared him to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
The email was read out in court on the second day of Depp’s libel action against the Sun over an article that labelled him a “wife beater” and referred to “overwhelming evidence” that he attacked Heard, 34, during their relationship, which he denies.
In response to the email, Depp, giving evidence in the three-week trial, said it appeared that “Ms Heard was building a dossier very early on that appears to be an insurance policy for later”.
In the email read out in court by Sasha Wass QC for NGN, Heard wrote, “Half of you I love madly, the other half scares me.” The drinking and drugs assured her she was “dealing with the monster”, she wrote.
She added: “Yesterday, I saw you pass out, amongst vomiting 3 times. All 3 times Jerry had to carry you from the floor. On the plane Nathan mentioned how many times he’s had to break into locked doors to wake you up, after passing out in the toilet. You would have embarrassed yourself countless times if someone would be honest enough to tell you. To show you. If someone filmed you while you were in this state, you would be mortified. It’s embarrassing just watching it happen. You can’t know because people (friends?) keep smiling to your face and then turning their heads and rolling their eyes at how ridiculous they feel at picking a grown man up from his own piss and vomit, knowing he’ll never be able to realise how bad he looks.”
The email continued: “I have no reason I have to stay with you. And I won’t. You don’t pay me. I don’t have to lie to you for my job, livelihood or kids. I will never want to be locked into you.”
She said she had “watched you [Depp] pass out cold on the floor, after drinking yourself sick. One of these times you cut yourself so badly that you needed stitches.”
Of those who protected him, she said: “If they left you, on the floor in your own shit, locked in the bathroom while you missed work – then you might have to actually learn. Learn to take care of yourself. You think you’re so tough, big self-destruction – I-don’t-give-a-fuck man?!? Bullshit.”
Describing him as a “needy man-child”, she added: “I watch as other grown men have to wipe you, basically. And you get the convenient benefit of never having to remember it. That’s nice. For you.”
She concluded: “I feel like the biggest idiot in the world. I have put up with so much. I have cleaned shit, vomit and piss up both literally and figuratively. I have been accused of crazy shit – some of which I deserved – only to never hear an apology for your booze-fuelled zeal. You have hit me repeated. Something you should Never have done. What a fucking man you are. And NONE of this would be possible without the booze and drugs. NONE”
