
Johnny Depp calls Amber Heard a ‘fat a**’ in recordings played in court
Johnny Depp says texts he sent to actor Paul Bettany about burning and drowning his former partner Amber Heard were a joke based on a Monty Python sketch.
The actor told a US court on Monday that he was "ashamed" of the messages but that they were an attempt at "irreverent and abstract humour".
It comes as Mr Depp continues to give evidence in the defamation trial, taking place in Fairfax County, Virginia, which is now in its third week.
The actor is suing Ms Heard for libel over a 2018 article she wrote in The Washington Post, which his lawyers say falsely implies he physically and sexually abused her.
The court previously heard that during a 2013 text exchange with Mr Bettany, Mr Depp had written: "Let's burn Amber.
"Let's drown her before we burn her. I will f*** her burnt corpse afterwards to make sure she's dead."
But Mr Depp said he and Mr Bettany had connected over their "abstract sense of humour" to deal with difficult situations, and the comments were never "intended to be real."
"As these are private texts there was a lot ... in context," he said.
Depp winced on the stand as the clips were played, while Heard appeared to fight back tears.