Amber Heard's legal team called on the actress to testify in the ongoing defamation trial.
Johnny Depp's ex-girlfriend, Ellen Barkin, labeled him as "jealous" and "controlling" in a videotaped testimony shown Thursday in the actor's defamation trial against Amber Heard.
The 68-year-old actress was called to testify on Heard's behalf and, in the deposition recorded on Nov. 22, 2019, Barkin recalled her brief "sexual" relationship with Depp in the 1990s. She said she met Depp in 1990 and their friendship lasted maybe 10 years. While the pair was filming Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the relationship turned romantic or, as Barkin chimed in during her testimony, "Can we change that to sexual?"
Barkin said "the friendship went up and down living on different coasts" but when she moved to Hollywood in 1994, the actress said it was no longer platonic. She said the sexual relationship lasted "anywhere between three and five, six [months]" and they'd meet up around "three of four times a week" at each other's houses in L.A. that were only a 10-minute drive apart.
Barkin would later offer more details about their roller-coaster relationship, claiming Depp would consume copious amounts of drugs and alcohol.
"He was drunk a lot of the time," she claimed. "A lot of the time. He was a red wine drinker." Barkin also alleged that Depp consumed "hallucinogenics, cocaine, marijuana." When asked to specify what hallucinogenics Depp consumed, Barkin said, "I don't really know. He called me and told me he was tripping." She was asked if Depp allegedly consumed these drugs in her presence and she said, "Yes, all the time," adding that it was fair to say at least dozens of times.
As for his alleged controlling nature, Barkin echoed similar sentiments alleged by the Aquaman actress while she was on the witness stand.
"He was just a jealous man, controlling," Barkin claimed. "Controlling. Asking me, 'Where are you going? Who are you meeting with?'"
Barkin also claimed there was an incident that allegedly sent Depp into a rage. "I had a scratch on my back once and he got very, very, angry," she alleged. "He insisted it came from me having sex with a person who wasn't him during that time."
Barkin reiterated a claim she has alleged in the past -- that Depp "tossed" a bottle of wine at her direction during a "fight" between "some friends in [a hotel] room" in Las Vegas. Barkin said she didn't know why Depp threw the bottle, but the bottle never hit her despite it being tossed in her direction.
It's not the first time Barkin has alleged Depp could be violent. She had previously spoken about her relationship with Depp, saying, "There is always an air of violence around him."
This is also not the first time Barkin has testified against Depp. She did so during the Pirates of the Caribbean star's 2020 libel case against The Sun's publisher, News Group Newspapers, after the outlet published an article in April 2018 referring to Depp as a "wife beater." Depp lost that lawsuit after the judge in the case ruled The Sun proved that what it published in the article was "substantially true."
In that libel case against The Sun, Depp had reportedly been asked in court why Barkin testified against him. Depp claimed Barkin had a grudge against him because he wouldn't give her more than the "sexual element" in the relationship.
"She wanted a proper relationship with me and I did not want that," Depp testified at the time. "I didn't feel the same about her as she did me and I suppose from that moment on she became very, very angry."
Barkin's testimony follows a parade of witnesses who testified on Heard's behalf, including the actress' sister, Whitney Henriquez, who claimed she witnessed and was a victim of Depp's alleged violent attacks.
Depp is suing Heard for $50 million over in response to an op-ed Heard wrote for the Washington Post in December 2018 about being the victim of domestic violence.
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