Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
To hear actor Ellen Barkin tell it, Johnny Depp was a controlling, jealous and angry man even back in the 1990s, when the two dated.
“Where are you going?” Barkin said Depp would ask her. “Who are you going with? What did you do last night?”
Barkin added: “I had a scratch on my back once that got him very, very angry because he insisted it came from me having sex with a person who wasn't him.”
Barkin recalled her relationship with Depp during a previously taped deposition that was played in a Virginia courtroom Thursday by lawyers for Depp's ex-wife, Amber Heard.
Heard's attorneys are trying to undermine Depp's libel lawsuit against her. Depp says a 2018 op-ed piece Heard wrote in The Washington Post unfairly portrayed him as a domestic abuser and cost him a lucrative Hollywood career that included the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie franchise.
Depp has testified he never struck Heard and that he was the victim of abuse inflicted by her. But Heard's attorneys say those denials lack credibility because he frequently drank and used drugs to the point of blacking out.
During Barkin's deposition, she testified that Depp was “always drinking or smoking a joint” or doing other illegal drugs. She said she dated Depp for about three to five months and characterized the relationship as more sexual than romantic.
Barkin co-starred with Depp in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” During filming, Barkin said Depp threw a wine bottle in her direction while he was fighting with some friends in a hotel room. However, she said she didn't know why he threw the bottle.
Heard's attorneys argue that Depp's career free-fall was the result of his own bad behavior - not Heard's op-ed. They played witness testimony that charted the actor's rise and fall from “the biggest movie star in the world” to a man who struggled with drugs, money and the ability to show up at movie sets on time.
Tracey Jacobs, who served as the actor's agent for about 30 years, said Depp was “showing up late to set consistently on virtually every movie” during their final years working together.
“I was very honest with him and said, `You've got to stop doing this - this is hurting you,”' Jacobs said. “And it did.”
Jacobs said Depp was an extraordinary talent but his behavior in the years before he fired her in 2016 became increasingly unprofessional, while his drug and alcohol use increased, Jacobs said.
“And it also got around town,” Jacobs said. “I mean, people talk, it's a small community. And it made people reluctant to use him.”
Joel Mandel, Depp's former business manager, testified in a previously recorded deposition that the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films had “catapulted him into an entirely different level of success.”
“It meant more employees,” Mandel said. “It meant buying additional property. … It meant a bigger life and a more expensive one.”
Things began to change around 2010, and it “became clear over time that there were issues with alcohol and drugs,” Mandel said. “And that translated into more erratic behavior, more stressful behavior, more times when it was difficult to engage in the kinds of conversations I needed to do my job.”
At one point, Depp was spending around $100,000 a month for a doctor and staff to help him get sober, Mandel said. At another, he was spending $300,000 a month on full-time staff, he said. And he said there also were times when Depp spent thousands of dollars a month on prescription drugs.
“The spending levels had grown very, very, very large and required that level of incredibly high income to be maintained,” Mandel said. “And when it dropped off, the disconnect became untenable.”
Mandel said he became extremely worried about Depp's finances in 2015, but that Depp met those concerns with anger. He said the actor fired him in 2016.
Bruce Witkin, a musician who was friends with Depp for nearly 40 years, testified in a previously recorded deposition that Depp could become jealous in his romantic relationships.
That jealousy was demonstrated with Heard when she would be off filming a movie “or doing something that he couldn't be around to see what was going in,” Witkin said. “I think he would work himself up.”
Witkin said he once saw bruises on Heard's arm when he and Depp were working on a documentary about Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. And he saw Depp with a “fat lip” one time. But Witkin said he never saw Depp or Heard physically abuse each other.
Witkin said he tried to help Depp with his substance abuse and had set him up with a therapist.
“He'd say, `I'll be all right. I'll be all right,”' Witkin said, recalling a conversation. “Well, you're not all right.”
Depp's sister, Christi Dembrowski, was always concerned with his well-being, both in terms of his substance abuse and generally, Witkin said.
“Everybody, I think, deep down inside was, but ... the people on the payroll won't really say much. They'll try but they don't want to lose their job,” Witkin said. “I'm not saying they all fall into the category. But it's a strange thing around people like him. Everybody wants something.”
Witkin said his friendship with Depp began to dissolve toward the end of 2017, when the actor started to pull away.
“He wrote me this weird text saying I stabbed him in the back and badmouthed him,” Witkin said. “And I'm like, `What are you talking about?' And he wouldn't explain it. And I pretty much haven't seen him since 2018.”
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.