Paul Bettany says he had not spoken to Johnny Depp for years before their private text messages surfaced in a London courtroom, and the two have not spoken since. The British actor made the remarks in an interview with The Times, reflecting on the 2020 libel trial in which his 2013 and 2014 exchanges with Depp became public record. “I hadn’t spoken to Johnny in years when that happened and I haven’t spoken to him since,” Bettany said. He called the experience “embarrassing” and “very surreal,” and said the oddest part was being cast as a close friend of a man he had lost touch with.
Lawyers read the messages aloud during Depp’s High Court suit against News Group Newspapers, publisher of The Sun. Depp sued over a 2018 column by executive editor Dan Wootton that branded him a “wife beater” after his casting in a Fantastic Beasts film. In one text, Depp proposed they “burn” his then-partner Amber Heard. Bettany answered with a joke about a medieval “drowning test” for witches. Depp’s reply was much harsher.
Bettany has described the texts as dark banter unearthed from a decade of correspondence. “Can you imagine what it would be like, honestly, to have a bunch of lawyers go through every one of your emails and texts for 10 years?” he said. He added that he never knew Depp during the marriage to Heard, having met him years earlier, and that he lives an unusually quiet life with his wife, Jennifer Connelly, whom he married in 2003.
Justice Andrew Nicol dismissed Depp’s claim in November 2020, finding the allegations that Depp repeatedly assaulted Heard “substantially true.” Appeal judges refused Depp permission to challenge the ruling in March 2021. Depp has consistently denied abusing Heard, and a Virginia jury sided with him in 2022 in his separate defamation case against her. That verdict left the public record divided between two courts and two countries.
Bettany once spoke warmly of Depp. In a 2016 post on social media he called him the “sweetest, kindest, gentlest man” he had known. The pair met professionally on the 2010 thriller The Tourist and worked together again on later projects. Bettany’s latest comments suggest the friendship has not recovered.
