Johnny Depp has been caught up with controversies and legal battles over his former wife and actress Amber Heard’s accusations of domestic violence. He had filed a defamation suit against her, and now two of his former partners have come in his defense in his libel suit against British tabloid The Sun, trashing claims that he was abusive.
Actresses Vanessa Paradis and Winona Ryder offered supportive statements for Depp, who is suing the tabloid paper’s publisher, News Group Newspapers, over an April 2018 article which referred to him as a “wife -beater.”
“We’ve been partners for 14 years and we raised our two children together,’’ Paradis said, court documents show, according to a report by AP. “Through all these years, I’ve known Johnny to be a kind, attentive, generous, and non-violent person and father.” She added that he was “never violent or abusive.’’
“I cannot wrap my head around (Heard’s) accusations,’’ Ryder said according to the documents. “He was never, never violent towards me. He was never, never abusive at all towards me.”
A two-week trial was due to start in London on March 25, but it was put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In March last year, Depp sued Heard for $50 million for defamation. Depp's lawsuit referred to Heard's allegations as a 'hoax' and has presented new evidence that it was actually Depp who was physically abused in the marriage, and not the other way around. "Ms. Heard also knew that her elaborate hoax worked: As a result of her false allegations against Mr. Depp, Ms. Heard became a darling of the #MeToo movement, was the first actress named a Human Rights Champion of the United Nations Human Rights Office, was appointed ambassador on women's rights at the American Civil Liberties Union, and was hired by L'Oreal Paris as its global spokesperson," the lawsuit stated.
In February, a leaked audio clip of a conversation between Depp and Heard from 2015 revealed Heard admit about hitting Depp. Depp's lawyer Adam Waldman, who confirmed to USA TODAY that it is a real recording from 2015, said in a statement: “The first confessional tape she made reveals a conversation any real abuse victim will recognize all too well. It exposes that Ms. Heard perpetrated serial violence against Mr. Depp, and then concocted an elaborate abuse hoax to cover it up. Ms. Heard gives a motive for her violence: Mr. Depp was always trying to 'split' to escape her abuse.”
