Johnny Depp’s security guard Sean Bett testified during the defamation trial between the actor and his ex-wife Amber Heard that he told Ms Heard that he worried the relationship would end badly.
After witnessing a number of fights, Mr Bett said he told Ms Heard that “this can’t continue” and that “you’re either going to kill each other or you’re going to be in jail”.
The defamation trial between Mr Depp and Ms Heard began on Monday 11 April in Fairfax, Virginia after Mr Depp’s lawsuit against his ex-wife in March 2019. Mr Depp is arguing that she defamed him in a December 2018 op-ed published in The Washington Post titled “I spoke up against sexual violence – and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change”.
Mr Bett said, “they went from being that loving, almost like high school couple where they were very giddy towards each other. He was very happy. She was very happy”.
He added that “they started to argue periodically and then the arguing started to progress more and more and more”.
Mr Bett said Ms Heard spoke to him about her relationship with Mr Depp on a couple of occasions.
“There was one occasion in which they had an argument at his West Hollywood address. Johnny told me, ‘just take her down downtown to the penthouse so she can relax and cool off’. As we were driving downtown, she was crying,” Mr Bett said.
“This was at the point when the arguing was taking place quite frequently. And I was telling her ... ‘this can’t continue, you guys are either going to kill each other or you’re going to be in jail,” he added.
“With tears ... she says ‘but I love him and I’m not going to lose him’,” Mr Bett quoted Ms Heard as saying at the time, which he said would have been around 2012 or 2013.
“I overheard her saying to him, he’s a ‘fata**,’ f*** you, Johnny. And you too Sean,’” he added.
“She went to throw a water bottle or a plastic cup down the stairs. And it bounced kind of in Johnny’s direction, but I ended up getting him and we got out of there as soon as possible,” Mr Bett said.
In her 2018 op-ed, Ms Heard partly wrote that “like many women, I had been harassed and sexually assaulted by the time I was of college age. But I kept quiet – I did not expect filing complaints to bring justice. And I didn’t see myself as a victim”.
“Then two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out,” she added at the time.
While Mr Depp isn’t named in the piece, his legal team argues that it contains a “clear implication that Mr Depp is a domestic abuser”, which they say is “categorically and demonstrably false”. Mr Depp is seeking damages of “not less than $50m”.
