Actor Paul Bettany has confirmed he maintains no relationship with Johnny Depp.. This distance follows the 2020 public disclosure of private messages during Depp's libel trial against The Sun.
The 'witch' jokes and the pet beaver domain
During the 2020 legal proceedings, the court read graphic text exchanges between Paul Bettany and Johnny Depp, who had previously collaborated on three films. In a 2013 exchange, Johnny Depp suggested they "burn" Amber Heard; Paul Bettany responded by questioning if she was actually a witch and jokingly suggested a "drowning test" instead, according to the report.
The messages also included a scheme to buy Amber Heard a pet beaver. Johnny Depp proposed that Paul Bettany record himself shaving the animal and post the clip online under the title "Johnny Depp shaves Amber Heard's Beaver," as reported in the source. While Johnny Depp later admitted in court that this was not a respectful way to speak about Ms. Heard, he defended the messages as a result of his "skewed" sense of humor.
The 2020 libel loss to The Sun
The disclosure of these texts occurred during a high-profile libel case where Johnny Depp sued the publisher of The Sun over a 2018 headline that called him a "wife beater." The lawsuit ended in November 2020 with a loss for Johnny Depp. The presiding judge ruled that Johnny Depp had assaulted Amber Heard on a dozen occasions,stating that drug and alcohol binges had turned the actor into a "monster."
This legal battle served as the catalyst for the public release of years of private communications.. For Paul Bettany, the trial transformed private , caustic jokes into public evidence of a friendship that, by his own account, had already faded long before the lawyers arrived.
Bettany's 'nothing burger' and the distance from Depp
In an interview with The Times, Paul Bettany clarified that he had not spoken to Johnny Depp in years even before the messages were made public in 2020. Paul Bettany expressed frustration at being portrayed as a close confidant of Johnny Depp, describing the narrative as "odd" given their lack of actual contact.
Paul Bettany noted that he chose to remain silent at the time because he believed the public would view the situation as a "nothing burger." He emphasized his own stability and privacy, mentioning that he has been married for 23 years and leads an "incredibly quiet life" compared to the public volatility of the Depp-Heard saga.
The 'unpleasant feeling' of a 10-year text audit
Speaking to The Independent in 2021 , Paul Bettany described the experience of having his private life scrutinized by legal teams as "unpleasant." He criticized the process of lawyers from a "scabrous" London newspaper pouring through a decade's worth of his emails and text messages to find ammunition for the trial.
Paul Bettany admitted that commenting on the case felt like "pouring fuel on the fire," but he highlighted the invasive nature of the discovery process. The actor's perspective underscores a broader tension between the legal necessity of evidence in libel cases and the right to private, albeit offensive, communication between friends.
Will Johnny Depp respond to the 'no contact' claim?
While Paul Bettany has now gone on the record about the severed tie, the source does not provide a current response from Johnny Depp regarding these claims. It remains unclear if Johnny Depp views the relationship as permanently broken or if he shares Paul Bettany's view that they had drifted apart years before the 2020 trial.
Additionally, the report does not mention whether other colleagues from the three films Paul Bettany and Johnny Depp worked on together have faced similar scrutiny or distanced themselves from the actor following the judge's 2020 ruling .
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