Johnny Depp called ex Vanessa Paradis an ‘extortionist French c***’ in email to Elton John

Actor Johnny Depp called his former partner and mother of his children Vanessa Paradis a ‘French extortionist c***’ in an email to British singer Elton John, Amber Heard‘s legal team revealed in court on Thursday.

Depp and his ex-wife Heard are currently facing off in a bitter $50million defamation lawsuit in Virginia, with the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ star accusing her of making false accusations of abuse that resulted in him being blacklisted by Hollywood. Heard denies fabricating the accusations, and is counter-suing Depp for $100million.

The second week in court on Thursday concluded with members of the jury being shown video and audio of Depp’s ‘violent episodes’. Heard’s legal team are working to portray Depp as an out-of-control alcoholic and drug addict, while he is claiming that his ex-wife was the aggressor during their heated arguments.

During Depp’s testimony, he told the court that she would bully him, call him names, threaten to harm herself if he left her, and used hard drugs throughout their marriage.

In one instance, 58-year-old Depp recalled how ‘Aquaman’ actress Heard, 36, told him that his two children – Lily-Rose Depp, 22 and son John Christopher ‘Jack’ Depp III, 20 – disliked him and that he was a ‘bad father’. 

Depp claimed that the truth was that his children did not like Heard.

But to counter this claim, Heard’s team shared an email that Depp wrote in 2013 to Elton John via email, in which he complained about French model and actress Ms Paradis, now 49 – whom he was with for about 14 years from 1998 to 2012. 

In the email, Depp confided in Sir Elton about his mother’s recovery from a health issue, before going on to tell the singer that his children had ‘fallen head over heels’ for Heard, and that his ex was trying to ‘brainwash’ his children against him.

‘On the other side of the coin… my kids have fallen head over heels in deep love with Amber (my girl) and that pressure off my shoulders is f***ing gone!!!,’ he told Sir Elton. ‘That is unlike the ‘French extortionist (ex c***) attempts to brain wash them against her… which, I’m sure is imminent.’

On Wednesday, Depp had described his friendship with Elton John, crediting him for helping him to sober up in 2013 and recover from the ‘monster’ of alcoholism in the early stages of his relationship with Heard. 

He has also told the trial that he drank heavily after his 2012 breakup from Ms Paradis. Depp and Heard went on to marry in 2015 having met on the set of the ‘Rum Diary’ in 2011.

The actor said in 2012, he texted Sir Elton thanking him for his help. ‘If it weren’t for you, I would’ve been swallowed up by the monster if it weren’t for you. That is a simple fact.’ He told the court: ‘Elton was a dear friend who had been sober for 40 years […] We had had discussion, and he wanted me to get clean, sober…’

But Depp was interrupted by Heard’s lawyer Benjamin Rottenborn, who told him to stay on topic.

A frustrated Depp said: ‘I’ll just stop talking.’

Rottenborn said: ‘I want to be respectful of the court’s time and I trust you do too?’

A flustered Depp said: ‘I don’t feel that I’m wasting anyone’s time.’ 

Meanwhile, other texts from Depp were also addressed under cross examination from Rottenborn on Thursday, who brought up the actor’s friendship with the British actor Paul Bettany.

Rottenborn said: ‘Paul Bettany is a good friend you’ve done drugs with?’ Depp replied: ‘That’s a strange question.’ Depp then admitted he had drank alcohol and done cocaine with him and taken pills together.

Depp and Bettany have been friends for years and starred together in 2014 sci-fi movie Transcendence and again in the action-comedy Mortdecai in 2015. 

Rottenborn read out texts Depp sent to Bettany on June 11, 2013. One of them read: ‘Let’s burn Amber!!!’ Rottenborn asked Depp: ‘You see that?’ In a low voice, Depp responded: ‘I do see that.’

Rottenborn said: ‘You didn’t stop. The next text down says: ”Let’s drown her before we burn her!!!” I read that right?’ Depp said: ‘Yes.’

Rottenborn said: ‘I’d like to apologize to the court and the jury for some of the language I’m going to use.’ He read the next text Depp sent to Bettany which read: ‘I will f**k her burnt corpse afterward to make sure she is dead.’

The lawyer asked for confirmation: ‘Did I read that right?’ Depp answered: ‘You certainly did.’

Rottenborn said: ‘You wrote that about the woman who would later become your wife.’ Depp said: ‘Yes.’

Rottenborn also brought up another text sent by Depp on April 9 2015 which Depp said was to Heard’s sister Whitney. It read: ‘I’m alright. I…though I never ever want to lay eyes on that filthy wh*** Amber, most embarrassing.’ Rottenborn said: ‘When you called Amber that filthy wh*** she was your wife at the time?’

Depp said: ‘Yes sir.’

In contrast, the court heard texts between Depp and his former security guard Jerry Judge on April 26, 2015, about two weeks after the ‘filthy wh***’ message. Judge wrote: ‘Johnny lovely to see how you and Amber are so happy. Two of you need happiness. Love to you and Amber.’

Depp replied: ‘We have been perfect. All I had to do was send the monster away and lock him up. We’ve been HAPPIER THAN EVER.’

Then in a text to his personal doctor on June 28, 2015, Depp returned to the monster theme. Depp wrote: ‘I have locked my monster child away in a cage deep within and it has fu**ing worked. We’re goddamn best friends now.’

Meanwhile, as the court was shown video on Thursday of Depp smashing up cabinets while in a drunken rage, Heard looked close to tears and her chin wobbled as she was watching the footage inside the Virginia courthouse.

Depp can be heard in the video shouting: ‘Motherf****! Motherf*****! to the sound of punching a wall.

Heard asks, ‘What happened?’ as items can be heard being thrown and battered around.

Heard said, ‘All I did was say sorry. Did something happen to you? I don’t think so. You drank this whole thing this morning? You’re smashing sh**.’

Rottenborn said in the court, ‘This is at your house in West Hollywood. That’s you on the video. You were violent?’

Depp said on the stand, ‘Clearly I was having a bad time. I don’t know what with regard to, but being illegally recorded by your chosen other is quite fitting with the rest of the photographs and tape recordings. She tried to hide it from me and laughed and smiled at the end. That was the most interesting part.’

Depp admitted: ‘I did assault a couple of cabinets but I did not touch Miss Heard.’

‘You may have been drunk?’ Rottenborn asked. 

‘It’s a possibility,’ Depp responded. 

‘You poured yourself a mega pint of red wine?’ Rottenborn asked. 

‘A mega pint? I poured myself a large glass of wine. I thought it necessary,’ Depp said. 

Rottenborn asked, ‘You’re bigger than Amber, physically?’

‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Depp said. 

‘Standards of southern gentleman are not in your mind in this particular moment?’ Rottenborn asked. 

Depp said, ‘I don’t know about anyone else but I’ve had experiences where one does stray from complete control over their emotions at times. I did not try to intimate Miss heard. Why was she filming? If she was scared to death why didn’t she leave?’ 

The jury heard deeply disturbing audio of an incident between Depp and Heard where he was begging her to cut him with a knife.

As the clip played Depp wiped his eye with his hand and reached for a tissue. Heard appeared to be on the verge of tears and to be struggling with her emotions.

In the recording Depp and Heard speak in low voices.

Depp says: ‘Want to cut me somewhere?’

Heard says: ‘Just don’t cut your skin, please don’t. Why would I do that? Please don’t cut yourself.’

Depp replies: ‘I need you. Cut me.’

There is a knock on the door and a housekeeper says: ‘Housekeeping’ – it appears they are in a hotel room.

Depp tells her to leave, adding: ‘No thank you, there’s sperm on the pillows.’

Depp tells Heard to ‘cut me’, adding that Elliot Spitzer, the former governor of New York, would ‘answer’ for it.

Depp says: ‘You f****** hate me.’

Heard says: ‘Put the knife down! Put he f***** knife down. Do not do that Johnny.’

Depp says he wants to look at Heard and that the pain will ‘go away.’

Heard tells him: ‘The knife is dull, it would be the worst thing in the world. Too painful and dull and dirty.’

The court heard more recordings of fights between Depp and Heard.

In one Depp says: ‘I become irrational when you’re doing movies, I become jealous and f****** crazy and weird and we fight a lot more.’

In another recording Depp says: ‘I head butted you on the f****** forehead. That doesn’t break a nose.’

In a message to his best friend Isaac Baruch in October 2016, Depp was disparaging of Heard.

He wrote: ‘Is the slippery wh**e that I donated my j**z to for a while staying there?’

In text in September 2013, Depp told Heard: ‘The only reason we go for the throat is love.’

Heard replied: ‘My throat is yours. You’re going to be the death of me but I don’t care.’

Depp said: ‘I have other uses for your throat which don’t include injury.’

Earlier the court was shown a photo from March 2013 which included a glass of whiskey on a table and some white lines of powder.

Depp described his alcohol and drug use on the stand Thursday, saying, ‘I’d fallen off the wagon when I was doing Lone Ranger,’ adding that ‘every day I’d come home there would be a glass of whiskey waiting for me.’ 

Heard’s lawyer Benjamin Rottenborn asked Depp, ‘You’d drink whiskey in the mornings?’

Depp flippantly replied, ‘Isn’t happy hour any time?’ prompting laughter in the court. 

Rottenborn asked if the white lines were cocaine, and Depp said it appeared to be. Rottenborn asked if Depp disputed that he carried cocaine in a which had ‘property of JD’ written on it.

Attempting humor again, Depp said: ‘No but it looks like it would fit some cocaine. Cocaine in my experience is normally given in plastic bags. When you put it in a box like that chances are you’ll leave a long line of cocaine behind you walking down the street.’  

Rottenborn read out a text sent after the flight from Boston to Los Angeles in May 2014 where Heard claims Depp was abusive and drunk.

He claims he had one glass of champagne and fell asleep in the toilet.

A week after the flight, Depp text Bettany: ‘I’m gonna properly stop the booze thing darling. Drank all night before I picked Amber up to fly to LA. Ugly mate. No food for days. Powders, half a bottle whiskey, thousand red bulls, pills, two bottles of champagne.’

Depp called himself an ‘angry agro engine in a blackout’ who was ‘screaming obscene’ things.

He said: ‘I’m admittedly too fu**ed 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.’

Rottenborn said: ‘Did I read that right?’

Depp said: ‘You did.’

Rottenborn read some texts sent by Depp on January 17, 2013 – he did not specify to whom. 

One read: ‘For the idiot cow!!!’ apparently referring to Heard.

The following two said: ‘Will do I’ll smack the ugly c**t around before I let her in, don’t worry’ and: ‘Did that worthless hooker arrive.’

Depp admitted that contrary to his testimony his father did punch him once.

Rottenborn asked: ‘Walls were not the only thing your father punched. Once he punched you in the face and knocked you down?’

Depp said: ‘Yes when I was 15 years old, just before I’d dropped out of high school one morning in my mind I was done with school. He’d asked me to take the dog for a walk or something, take out garbage. I just said no and he gave me a quick shot pretty hefty and it rattled my head, rattled my cage.’

Rottenborn asked Depp if he tried to ‘conduct yourself as a gentleman’ and he said yes.

Rottenborn said: ‘Do you live up to the standards of a Southern gentleman?’

Depp said: That was essentially when you have deep deep roots in the south and Kentucky, it’s not just your parents, it’s your grandparents, raised to be southern gentleman, when chivalry was still alive.’

Rottenborn asked: ‘You think you live up to the standards of a Southern Gentleman?’

Depp said: ‘I believe I do.’

On Wednesday, the jury heard audio recordings of Depp and Heard talking about a fight in which she admits to hitting him and where he claims she kicked the bathroom door against his head.

The recordings appear to have been taken by Depp, who earlier talked about making a habit of it. It was the first time the trial had heard Heard’s voice – she is due to testify later in the case.

In one clip Heard tells Depp: ‘I didn’t punch you. I’m sorry I didn’t hit you across the face in a proper slap. I was hitting you, it was not punching you.’

Depp says: ‘Don’t tell what it feels like to be punched.’

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Heard replies: ‘You’ve been in a lot of fights, you’ve been around a long time. You didn’t get punched. You got hit. I’m sorry I hit you like this, I didn’t punch you. I did not fu**ing deck you. I fu**ing was hitting you. I don’t know what the motion of my actual hand was. You’re fine. I did not hurt you, I did not punch you, I was hitting you. I’m not sitting here bit**ing about.

‘You’re a fu**ng baby,’ Heard said. 

Shouting, Heard continues: ‘You are such a baby! Grow the f**k up Johnny’.

When Depp says it was a physical fight, Heard says: ‘I did start a physical fight.’

Depp replies: ‘I got the f**k out of there’.

With bitter sarcasm, Heard said: ‘You are admirable.’

The court heard another recording of Depp and Heard in which she called him a ‘f****** piece of sh*t.’

She says: ‘Why don’t you go f*** yourself. Go suck your own d***. Stingy old piece of s***.’

Referencing Depp’s son Jack, Heard sarcastically says: ‘I hope to God Jack’s stepfather teaches them more about being a man because you’re so good at it.’ 

BATHROOM DOOR INCIDENT 

Depp can be heard talking about Heard ‘kicking the bathroom door and hitting me in the skull.’

Heard replies: ‘I was upset I was on an Ambien, there was a lot going on.’

In another section of the recording Depp talks about how in the Australia incident he went to ‘at least five bathrooms and two bedrooms.’

An angry Heard responds: ‘You escape the solution. We cannot work it out if you run away to the bathroom!’

Depp says: ‘A boxer can’t go 12 rounds without a break.’

In a later part of the argument, Depp complained that Heard had thrown ‘f**king pots at me.’

Heard said: ‘That’s different, just because I’ve thrown pots and pans does not mean you come and knocking on the door.’

Depp replies: ‘You seem to think there’s this cowardice in me.’

On the stand Depp said: ‘What was just played was very much the tone and the aggression and the attitude and the need for a fight from Miss Heard. I don’t know if that was some need for attention. That was the sound that I’d gotten very used to, the squabbling, the raising of the voice to excommunicate anything I had to say about the situation.’

Recounting the argument which preceded the audio recordings, Depp said that it happened in the penthouse in Los Angeles that he lived in with Heard.

He said: ‘She came banging on the door, I didn’t answer. I was in the shower, I didn’t want to deal with any more of that sarcastic demeaning aggressive violent toxic spew.

‘She kept banging, I finally got out of the shower, I opened the bathroom door about that much (shows small space with hands) so I could have a good hold on the door in case she tried to burst in. I was right, she did. She was pushing all her weight on the door trying to get in and I was pushing back, I didn’t want to let her in.

‘When it was almost closed she yelped in pain and screamed ”ow my toes!”, so in that second I thought possibly her foot had gotten caught under the door. I thought she was injured so I knelt down to have a look. When I knelt down on my hands and knees to look at her foot, she kicked the bathroom door into my head.

‘I was completely taken aback by such a corrosive, horrific move so I stood up. By this point the door was open and I stood up and said: ”What the f**k was that?” Next move was bang, she clocked me in the jaw.’

BROKEN NOSE INCIDENT

Recounting another incident, Depp stood up and acted out a physical encounter where she claimed he broke her nose.

He said: ‘I was going into my office. She just started throwing wild punches at the back of my head, the side of my head. Anything she could connect with. I tried to avoid the attack.’

At this point Depp stood up and acted the scene out.

He said: ‘I walked across the mezzanine, as I’m approaching the door suddenly I’m just getting clobbered from behind. Primal instinct is to duck and cover. I came up protecting my face but there are arms swinging wildly. I put my arms up and was able to get her into a bear hug just to stop her from hitting me anymore.’

At that point Heard accused Depp of headbutting her and said: ‘Way to go Johnny, you broke my nose.’

Depp denied making a headbutt and said it was only ‘accidental contact.’

Depp claimed that Heard showed him a bloody tissue but when he checked it in the trash he ‘realized it was nail polish.’ 

ISLAND INCIDENT 

While on Depp’s island in the Bahamas in December 2015 with his daughter Lily-Rose, Depp claimed that Heard threw a can at his head.

He said: ‘The argument escalated and she simply reached down and grabbed the can of mineral spirits and chucked it at my face. It struck me right at the bridge of the nose, the forehead, bridge of the nose. It hurt’

AMBER’S 30th BIRTHDAY 

Depp arrived at the dinner at Heard’s penthouse nearly two hours late after a meeting with his accountants which revealed the state of his finances, which he called a ‘shock.’

Depp said: ‘Quite an inordinate sum of money had been withdrawn, it had disappeared and after having worked 30 something years in the industry I was shocked at where I was to learn where I was financially.’

Depp said that some of his houses might have to be sold due to the state of his accounts.

During the dinner Depp was ‘cold’ towards her but when she tried to argue with him later on he just got into bed.

He said: ‘Miss Heard entered the bedroom while I was laying on my side of the bed reading. She was still rattling off all the wrongs I’d done to her on that particular day, how unreliable I am, what a horrible person I was.

‘I did not engage verbally, nothing. She didn’t get a jolt of me, she got out of bed, walked around the bed, you’ve got a person who is throwing multiple shots at your face, at your head at your neck, anything she could hit.

‘I got up out of bed, grabbed her by the shoulders, sat her down on the bed and I said I’m leaving, please don’t try and stop me. I’m leaving. And she got up off the bed and she squared off at me in the doorway of our bedroom.

‘I said what do you want to do, hit me again? I said go ahead, hit me. Bam (motions being hit). Would you like another. Bam. There’s a second. Good, now you’re done. Grabbed her by the shoulders, walked her to the bed, said don’t follow me, I’m leaving.’

Depp walked out and went to his other house – it was 4.30am.

POOP IN THE BED

Depp said that he planned to go back and pick up some of his belongings while Heard was away for a few days but his security guard Sean Bett told him not to.

He said: ‘I received some news that was as absurd and grotesque and cruel. I was shown a picture of what the problem was.

‘(Bett) showed me a photograph on his phone.’

With a laugh Depp said: ‘It was a photograph of our bed and on my side of the bed was human fecal matter, so I understood why it wasn’t a good time to go down there.

‘My initial response to that was, I mean I laughed. It was so outside, it was so bizarre and so grotesque that I could only laugh, so I did not go down there that day.’

Depp told how on May 21,  2016, the last time he saw Heard before the divorce, she brought up the ‘fecal matter’.

He said: ‘She tried to blame it on the dogs. The dogs are Yorkies, they weigh about 4lbs each. The photograph that I saw – I lived with those dogs for many years and so did Hilda Vargas, she’s a woman who’s been with me for 30+ years, she was the one who photographed it. She knew the dogs as well as I did and knew that did not come from a dog.’

FINAL MEETING – MAY 21, 2016

Depp claimed that Heard made up claims that Johnny hit her. 

‘I was walking towards the kitchen to exit and then suddenly (Heard’s friend) Rocky Pennington ran into the penthouse and started yelling, leave her alone Johnny. 

‘I was by the refrigerator, I was 20ft away. She was still sitting on the couch. That’s when the screaming started. 

‘I’m 20ft away. She’s got Rocky there. ”Stop hitting me Johnny, she’s (Heard) screaming in her best freaked out, upset voice. Stop hitting me.’

Depp’s security team Jerry Judge and Sean Bett entered the room, Depp said. 

‘(Heard) said that’s the last time you’ll ever hit me, the last time you’ll ever do that to me. 

‘I’m a good 20ft away.’ 

Depp detailed the explosive fight he and Heard had in March 2015 in Australia where the top of his finger was severed when Heard allegedly threw a bottle of vodka at him.  

The couple were in Australia while Depp was filming the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean film. Heard claims that he chopped off his fingertip with a knife during the argument, and her team has called it a ‘three day hostage situation’ where Depp was repeatedly violent.

However Depp took the stand Wednesday and told the court that Heard was angry at him after she met with his lawyers to discuss a post nuptial agreement. Heard had claimed that one of the lawyers laughed at her – he later discovered that was not true.

Depp said: ‘All I could do was try to calm her down and say I was not out to screw her over or put her in a position that was uncomfortable. It did not work, it escalated and turned into madness, chaos, violence.’

‘She was irate, she was possessed. When I tried to remove myself as I normally would, as she’s hammering me with brutal words. Pardon my language but I remember that it wasn’t nice.. Sort of being called an a** kisser to lawyers or a pu**y that didn’t fight for her or stand up for her. I tried to remove myself from the situation but to no avail.

‘The house they’d rented for me in Australia was quite a large place. I think I ended up locking myself in at least nine bedrooms, bathrooms that day as she was banging on the doors and streaming obscenities and wanting to have a physical altercation.’

Depp described how Heard walked away after he locked himself in one room and then he walked downstairs to the rec room where there was a pool table and a bar.

He said: ‘I went behind the bar, I grabbed a bottle of vodka, and a shot glass and sat at the bar and I poured myself two or three stiff shots of vodka, first taste of alcohol in a long time.

‘When she came down to the bar and found me there started screaming you’re drinking again, the monster and all that.’

‘She walked up to me and reached and grabbed the bottle of vodka and stood back and hurled it at me’, Depp said, motioning the act of throwing. Moving his hand past his head, he said: ‘It just went right past my head and smashed behind me.

‘I stood up and walked behind the bar and there was a larger bottle of vodka, the kind with the handle. I grabbed that and sat in my seat, opened the bottle and poured myself a shot and drank it

‘Miss Heard was flinging insults left right and center. She grabbed that bottle and threw that at me.’ Depp said he used the bench in front of him to show the jury where the bar was situated and leaned back in his chair.

He said: ‘I was leaning like this in the chair. First bottle went, got the other bottle, shot. Takes second bottle. I’m in this position again. My hand is on the edge of the bar like that, leaning over.

‘She threw the large bottle and it made contact and shattered everywhere and I honestly didn’t feel the pain at first at all, I felt no pain.’

‘What I felt was heat and I felt as if something were dripping down my hand and then I looked down and realized that the tip of my finger had been severed. I was looking directly at my bone sticking out.

‘The meaty portion of the inside of your finger. Blood was just pouring out and at that point I think I went into some sort of, I don’t know what a nervous breakdown feels like but that’s probably the closest I’ve been. Nothing made sense. I knew in my mind and in my heart this is not life. This is not life. No one should have to go through this.

‘This feeling of being in the middle of some sort of nervous breakdown I started to write with my own blood on the walls, little reminders from our past that essentially represented lies she had told me, lies I had caught her in.’  

Looking at a picture of himself on a stretcher, Depp said, ‘That’s me in the emergency room. I see a detail I’d forgotten.

‘Miss Heard had taken my cigarette from the ashtray and stubbed it out on my face.’

Asked which finger it was, Depp held up his right middle finger and said: ‘It’s the funny looking one.’

Showing it to the jury, he said: ‘You can see from the initial wound all these bones were crushed, it looked.’

Depp said that while Depp was injured Heard yelled ‘white noise in a very high frequency’ at him, adding: ‘I was in shock.’

Depp was taken to the emergency room where he lied to the doctors and said he smashed the finger in some accordion doors because he ‘didn’t want to get Miss Heard in trouble’

Depp was shown a photo of the finger taken in the hospital which he said was ‘the remains of my finger’.

Putting his prescription sunglasses on, he looked at a photo of himself lying on a stretcher in hospital.

He said: ‘I see a detail I’d forgotten. Miss Heard had taken my cigarette from the ashtray and stubbed it out on my face.’

The trial will resume on Monday.