Johnny Depp’s former girlfriend, actress Ellen Barkin, claimed the actor gave her drugs the first time they slept together in deposition testimony that was revealed as part of the 6,000 pages of pre-trial documents recently unsealed in Depp’s lawsuit against Amber Heard.
Barkin, 68, sat down for the deposition in 2019 and answered questions about her past relationship with Depp, which she said lasted several months and ended after the pair finished filming Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in 1997.
Barkin said that she and Depp were friends before their relationship became sexual, and she testified about the first time the actor expressed his interest in taking their platonic relationship towards a physical direction.
“He came on to me in the living room of my house, pulled me onto his lap and said something like, ‘Oh, come on Ellen,’ or whatever. I protested a little and then — not too much,” she stated. “And that was that.”
When asked to clarify her remarks about how she “protested,” Barkin said that Depp did not assault her, but claimed, “He gave me a Quaalude and asked me if I wanted to f**k.”
Methaqualone, or brand name Quaalude, is a central nervous system depressant that acts as a sedative and hypnotic.
Much of Barkin’s deposition was played in court during the defamation trial, however, her claim that Depp gave her a Quaalude was not included evidence presented to the jury.
In her deposition, Barkin stated that, at the beginning of their relationship, Depp, “was loving… He seemed like someone who took care of the people around him.” Additionally, she said that Depp was “truly lovely with my children.”
However, she testified that the actor “was drunk all of the time… [or] most of the time,” and claimed that he was a “red wine drinker.” She also claimed that Depp used drugs frequently while she knew him, including hallucinogens, and claimed that Depp once “called me and told me he was tripping”
Apart from the alleged use of drugs and alcohol, Barkin further alleged that there was “always an air of violence” around Depp. “He’s a yeller. He is verbally abusive,” she stated. “There was just a lot of yelling. A lot of yelling.”
One instance that stood out in her mind was when Depp threw a wine bottle in a hotel room in Las Vegas while shooting Fear and Loathing. Barkin testified that she was supposed to be in Las Vegas for just a few days while shooting her scene, but stayed for two weeks to be with Depp.
During that time, he allegedly threw a bottle in a heated moment, but it wasn’t directed toward her. She stated that their relationship ended shortly thereafter when she told Depp she was going to go back home to Los Angeles and he got angry and “jealous.”
He’s just a jealous man, controlling; ‘Where are you going? Who are you going what? What did you do last night?'” Barkin claimed. “I had a scratch on my back that got him very, very angry because he insisted it came from me having sex with a person who wasn’t him.”
According to her deposition, she only spoke with Depp once since she left him in Las Vegas, and that was when they ran into each other at the Cannes Film Festival over a decade later.
“He called me from across the room. He brought me a glass of champagne. We sat on the steps and spoke and I told him how awful he had treated me and he was clearly making some kind of sexual move,” Barkin stated.
Depp filed a $50 million defamation lawsuit against Heard in March 2019 after the Washington Post published an op-ed she wrote about being the victim of domestic violence. Depp’s name was not mentioned in the article, however, the story came out as their contentious 2016 divorce continued to make news headlines. After a six-week trial, Depp won the case after the jury’s verdict fell primarily in Depp’s favor and he was awarded $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages.
