Johnny Depp says Amber Heard ‘despised’ Paul Bettany because she was jealous of their friendship

Johnny Depp testified that Amber Heard was envious of his friendship with WandaVision star Paul Bettany, during his defamation trial against his ex-wife on Monday (25 April).

On his fourth day on the stand at the Fairfax County Courthouse, Virginia, Depp told the court that Heard was jealous of the "instant connection" he had formed with Bettany and saw him as a “threat” to their time together.

Answering questions from his own lawyers, Depp described Heard’s interactions with Bettany as “abominable”, adding: “Ms Heard despised Mr Bettany, mainly because we had become such close friends and for her, he was a threat and would take me away from her, with regard to if Paul Bettany were getting the attention from me, that was a show-stopper. It would cause all kinds of unpleasantries.”

Depp then testified that Heard had once made Bettany and his wife Jennifer Connoly’s son cry during a lunch after belittling him.

“He voiced his opinion, and Ms Heard demeaned that young man to the point of where he burst into tears and walked away,” Depp said. Depp claimed he later told Heard that her “behavior was unacceptable” and that she “had no right”. He said he told her, “You cannot always be right. You should try being wrong sometime, because you might learn something.”

Depp’s friendship with the Marvel star had already come up during this trial and during Depp’s previous libel case against The Sun in 2020. Text messages between the two were used as evidence in both trials – in them, the pair joked about burning and drowning Heard.

“Let’s drown her before we burn her!!! I will f*** her burnt corpse afterwards to make sure she’s dead,” Depp wrote in the texts.

Bettany addressed the messages during an interview with The Independent in December 2021, saying it was “embarrassing” to have the messages made public.

“And we live in a world without context,” he told The Times. “I didn’t know Johnny when he was married to Amber. I knew him before. But we hadn’t spoken for years. During the marriage I didn’t know them. So I wasn’t around for any of that.”

Heard is yet to take the stand to tell her side of the story.

The trial is currently ongoing. You can follow all the live updates here.