Amber Heard’s friend claims Johnny Depp said he could ‘punch her in the face’ after they were married

Amber Heard’s friend has claimed that Johnny Depp said he would be able to “punch her in the face” once they were married in bombshell testimony during the couple’s high-stakes defamation trial in Fairfax, Virginia.

In pre-recorded testimony played to the court on Tuesday, Ms Heard’s friend iO Tillett Wright told the court about a conversation he had with Mr Depp at the couple’s wedding in the Bahamas back in 2015.

Mr Wright testified that he was walking from the ceremony to the wedding reception with Mr Depp congratulating him on their nuptials.

As they headed to the party, he said the actor told him that nobody would be able “to do anything” if he punched Ms Heard now that they were husband and wife.

“I was walking with Johnny and congratulating him that they pulled it off and that they did it,” he said.

“And he said: ‘We’re married now. I can punch her in the face and nobody can do anything about it.’”

Mr Wright said that he became friends with Ms Heard first, who then introduced him to Mr Depp.

He also became close to Mr Depp until 2015 when he said he stopped being friends with the actor.

While they were friends, he recalled having conversations with him about Ms Heard, Mr Depp’s drug and alcohol use and the “monster” he would become when he wasn’t sober.

He recalled one conversation where Mr Depp allegedly said that Ms Heard had no talent and that “all she’s got is her looks”.

“When her t**s start to sag and she gets wrinkly no one is going to be interested,” he recalled Mr Depp saying of his wife.

He also said that Mr Depp also spoke to him about his substance abuse issues on several occasions, saying he “resented having to be sober”.

“He didn’t particularly enjoy being sober but people around him were very, very concerned,” he said.

The deposition was played in court after Ms Heard’s testimony came to an end following an intense two-day cross-examination from Mr Depp’s legal team.

Mr Depp is suing his ex-wife for defamation over a 2018 op-ed she penned for The Washington Post where she described herself as a “a public figure representing domestic abuse”.

The Pirates of the Caribbean actor is not named in the article, which is titled “I spoke up against sexual violence – and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change”.

However Mr Depp claims that it falsely implies that he is a domestic abuser – something that he strongly denies – and that it has left him struggling to land roles in Hollywood. He is suing for $50m.

Ms Heard is countersuing for $100m, accusing Mr Depp of orchestrating a “smear campaign” against her and describing his lawsuit as a continuation of “abuse and harassment”.