The news that Johnny Depp has been hit with a restraining order, having allegedly domestically abused his estranged wife Amber Heard, has dominated headlines in recent days, but the actor has received vociferous support from one friend.
Comedian Doug Stanhope has made his opinion about the situation known via a guest column in The Wrap.
Stanhope revealed that he and numerous close friends of the Pirates of the Caribbean star have always believed Depp was being manipulated by Heard.
Stanhope wrote:
It’s almost 4 a.m. and I can’t sleep. Not even dozing off. Today, a friend of mine was pilloried in the press for domestic violence. Coupled with a picture of his wife with a bruise, he was murdered on social media.
I watched it happen and I didn’t say a fucking word.
Even though I knew it was bullshit.
We’d watched it build like this since before they were married. We’d watched her manipulate and fuck with him for years. We didn’t say a word. To each other, yes, but never to him.
When your friend is in an awful, abusive relationship — man or woman — and you risk weighing in that their counterpart is a demon, you know the odds are they will jump right back into the fire and then dump you from their life for being honest.
Stanhope continued:
My girlfriend, Bingo, and I have known Johnny Depp for a few years now. We have watched Amber Heard fuck with him at his weakest — or watched him at his weakest from being fucked with — for the entire time we’ve known him.
And we didn’t say shit.
Because he’s Johnny Depp…Bingo and I were at Johnny’s house for most of that Saturday until just before the alleged assault. We assumed initially that his dour mood was because of his mother’s death the day before. But he opened up in the most vulnerable of ways that it was not only his mother, but that Amber was now going to leave him, threatening to lie about him publicly in any and every possible duplicitous way if he didn’t agree to her terms. Blackmail is what I would imagine other people might put it, including the manner in which he is now being vilified.
We stopped not saying shit.
Bingo and I together, and then separately, told him how much we were aware of this manipulative asshole, how his closest circle had all agreed on this since the day we met and that we all feared that telling him outright might alienate us all.
A photo posted by Lily-Rose Depp (@lilyrose_depp) on
Stanhope closed saying:
But any one of my friends will tell you I always call them out on bullshit. Abusing women is bullshit. Johnny doesn’t abuse anyone. And he told me that day ahead of time that she’d pull some kind of shit like this.
Johnny Depp got used, manipulated, set up and made to look like an asshole. And he saw it coming and didn’t or couldn’t do anything to stop it.
He may never talk to me again for saying it but I’d never forgive myself for not coming to his defense out of fear or ego.
I stand up for my friends and I tell the fucking truth.
That is a pretty uncompromising account of how Stanhope sees things, but it may take a while before the truth is established in court.
