Johnny Depp praises Amber Heard as having ‘the strength of a thousand men’ in text to her mother

‘Your daughter has risen far above the nightmarish task of taking care of this poor, old junkie’

Johnny Depp praised Amber Heard for having “the strength of a thousand men” in a text to her mother, the Heard legal team revealed in court.

As proceedings in Mr Depp’s defamation trial against Ms Heard resumed on Monday, her attorney Ben Rottenborn said Mr Depp was going into detox for addiction to pain killers when he spoke to Ms Heard’s mother.

Johnny Depp trial – latest updates

On 19 August 2014, Mr Depp wrote: “my dearest Paige, how unbelievably kind and pure your message was. I am beyond thankful to have you in my life. There’s no luckier man on this earth to have the strength that Amber gives me and the full support of each of you individually that I’ve gotten helps immeasurably.”

“I don’t need to explain the horrors to you,” he continued in the message. “You know as well as I. What you do need to know – that your daughter has risen far above the nightmarish task of taking care of this poor, old junkie.

“Never a second has gone by that she didn’t look out for me or have her eyes on me to make sure that I was okay. Words are truly feeble in attempting to explain her heroism in a text. Suffice to say that I have never met, or loved, a woman or a thing, more.”

“She has the strength of a thousand men and that is due to no one or nothing but you, sweetheart. Thank you. I love you. Your son-outlaw.”

Paige Parsons passed away in 2020.

The defamation trial between Mr Depp and Ms Heard began on Monday 11 April in Fairfax, Virginia following 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”.

In the piece, Ms Heard 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”.

Ms Heard has filed a $100m counterclaim against Mr Depp for nuisance and immunity from his allegations.