Johnny Depp’s Ex Ellen Barkin Testifies He Threw A Wine Bottle At Her In Defamation Trial

Johnny Depp, who is suing his ex-wife Amber Heard for defamation, is facing witnesses testifying against him in the fifth week of this trial including his former agent, ex-girlfriend Ellen Barkin and a Disney executive.

A prerecorded deposition was played Thursday and featured Depp’s former agent at United Talent Agency, Tracy Jacobs. She has been his representative for the bulk of his career until he let her go in October 2016.

Jacobs also noted that she believed Depp had “fundamental issues with anger,” which noticeably got worse over the years she knew him. She also stated that she hasn’t seen him hit a woman.

In their early relationship, Jacobs said she did not find Depp to be particularly difficult, but in the last decade, she said his “unprofessional behavior” began to escalate, which she suspected to be the result of his drug addiction. Jacobs said she had to fly out to Australia on two separate occasions while filming Pirates of the Caribbean 5 because his behavior was prompting such frequent complaints.

She said that before his drug problems, “crews loved him because he was always so great with the crew. But crews don’t love sitting around for hours and hours waiting for the star to show up.”

One element of Depp’s argument is that Heard’s op-ed in the Washington Post got him fired from Pirates, but Jacobs claimed that he simply lost the role because the actor’s “star dimmed.” Depp’s firing from the hit franchise also came up when a deposition by Disney’s production executive Tina Newman was played as well.

Newman testified that she never saw Heard’s op-ed mentioned in any corporate communications within Disney. She did note that articles were shared about Depp’s behavior on the set of Dead Men Tell No Tales, as well as aspects of his personal life, but she said she has “never seen any documentation that referenced the op-ed, never discussed it, and did not hear of or partake in discussion of its impact.”

Another testimony that took place yesterday was that of the actress Ellen Barkin, who had a brief sexual relationship with Depp in 1994. She referred to Depp as “controlling,” and said Depp once became “very very angry because he thought I was having sex with someone I wasn’t,” when he saw a scratch on her back. She said he became so angry that he threw a wine bottle at her.

Heard’s op-ed never named Depp but it described herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse.” She has countersued Depp for $100 million, not backing away from her claims of him being an abuser and she has also accused the actor of orchestrating an online smear campaign against her. The closing arguments for this trial are set for May 27.