According to Amber Heard’s former private investigator, she took advantage of Johnny Depp in order to advance her budding acting career.
Paul Baresi, a Hollywood ‘fixer,’ was on the ‘frontlines’ of the couple’s defamation cases and was paid by Heard, 36, to dig up dirt on Depp, 58, before his UK defamation case.
Johnny Depp was awarded $15 million in his defamation case against his ex-wife Amber Heard on Wednesday.
During a three-month inquiry, Baresi questioned 100 persons from the United States and Europe who had worked on films with Depp stretching back 30 years.
When Baresi couldn’t find any dirt, the Heard fired him.
However, the private investigator from Rancho Cucamonga, California, who was originally engaged to investigate unfounded accusations that Tom Cruise had a gay affair, had developed an interest in Depp and proceeded to probe him.
He discovered through some of Depp’s closest friends that the A-lister was surrounded by so-called buddies who cheated him financially and emotionally.
‘When Amber hired me, she wanted proof that Johnny was a serial abuser for women,’ Baresi told MailOnline.
‘I couldn’t find another women who said Johnny abused them.
Johnny, according to Baresi, paid rent, medical expenses, house payments, car payments, and even bail and legal fees for more than a dozen people.
He said: ‘Johnny was besieged by people who ingratiated themselves into his domain.’
‘Once they were there, they’d scratch his back with one hand while the other took in the feed.’
‘All of the people around him have been on the take for so many years.
‘They feel comfortable with taking things from him. He’s a very passive guy.
He added: ‘Even Amber in some respects was an opportunist on par with everyone else.
‘She obviously knew his power in Hollywood and she seized upon that power in the hopes of furthering her career.
‘At the end of the day, in Hollywood, it’s who you know and who’s pulling for you. Because for every part in a movie there are 2,000 people equally competent to handle that role.
Baresi gained access to Johnny Depp’s inner workings and was astounded to learn that the multimillionaire actor was not only ‘king in the sphere of entertainment,’ but also easy prey for predatory individuals.
Depp had a difficult childhood prior to his success in Pirates of the Caribbean.
He traveled from a small village in Kentucky to Hollywood as a high school dropout with an abusive and suicidal mother.
He was abused by his turbulent and aggressive mother when he was a child.
He said during his slander trial against Heard, ”In our house we were never exposed to any type of safety or security, the only thing to do was stay out of the line of fire.
‘My mother was quite unpredictable. She had the ability to be as cruel as anyone can be with all of us,’
Depp claimed that growing up in a violent household taught him not to repeat the same kind of abuse in his own home later in life.
Nonetheless, Depp’s status as a mega-rich celebrity meant he had a lot of money, and he had the rockstar mentality to go along with it, spending lavishly and sometimes foolishly.
Joel Mandel, Depp’s former financial manager, testified last month that the actor made over $600 million between 1999 and 2016, the year he divorced Heard. During that time, Mandel claimed Depp’s spending habits were getting increasingly irresponsible.
Depp squandered his fortune on homes, a fleet of expensive cars, private plane flights, and the cannoning of his late friend Hunter S. Thompson’s ashes.
He also paid $100,000 per month for an addiction specialist, $10,000 per day for a security detail, and $300,000 per month for full-time employees.
According to reports, Depp’s opulent lifestyle costs more than $2 million per month to maintain, putting him in financial peril.
Baresi said: ‘I interviewed so many people who said there are many people who took advantage of Johnny.
‘Johnny feels sorry for these people. Maybe he feels guilty because he made so much money and he feels like he has to take care of these people.
‘I think it proved to be the bane of his existence, unfortunately. His ruin was in part by his own doing.
‘Johnny would let them have free reign and walk all over him. Isaac Baruch, who testified on Johnny’s behalf, he’s the worst of all. He’s been living off Johnny his entire adult life.
‘Johnny was a big addict and in those moments that he was distracted they would just take things from him.
‘That’s what he’s lived with for decades.’
He added: ‘He grew up to be a sensitive, fragile man. He didn’t have the role models to champion him.’
Depp’s fall from favor, according to Baresi, was mostly his own making since he allowed himself to be surrounded by individuals who would take advantage of him.
The P.I. said: ‘The decline and downfall were due to these grifters, these wannabes, these freeloaders that came into Johnny’s life.
‘They would insinuate into Johnny’s life. They would milk him for whatever he was worth – not so much materialistically or monetarily but emotionally.
Not just Baresi believed Depp had a problem with his overbearing entourage.
One of Depp’s closest pals, Chuck E Weiss, thought the people Depp surrounded himself with were harmful for him.
‘For decades, Johnny’s so-called pals stole from him,’ Baresi claimed Weiss told him before his death in 2021.
‘The worst part is they relied on his alcohol and drug addiction to keep his head in the clouds so he didn’t catch them doing it.
‘Over the years Johnny became accustomed to his friends helping themselves to his stuff— cash, jewelry, even pieces of his clothing.’
Weiss claimed Depp informed him that the manager of a nightclub he owned stole money from the register and that a putative acquaintance stole several hundred dollars from his bedside table.
‘As a close personal friend of Johnny Depp’s for over 30 years, I’ve only seen him be one of the kindest, gentlest, most sensitive and generous human beings I’ve ever had the great pleasure to know,’ wrote celebrity tattooist Jonathan Shaw, who did most of Depp’s body artwork, even at the time of Heard and Depp’s split in May 2016.
The man is constitutionally incapable of raising a violent hand to a woman.
‘Everything I know about Amber Heard, however (and it’s a lot), seems to support the many claims that she is a lying, two-faced, bottom-feeding fame harpy, who lives by the old Hollywood code of ”hurray for me and f**k you!”
‘It’s disgustingly obvious to anyone with half a brain that the absurd contrived allegations about Johnny’s behavior are nothing but a pathetic and desperate attempt to extort money from my dear little brother.’
On Wednesday, the jury found in favor of all three of Depp’s defamation allegations against Heard, finding that she had falsely accused him of domestic abuse after less than three days of deliberation.
The actor received a total of $15 million in damages, with $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages.
Only one of Heard’s three countersuit allegations was successful, and it was connected to Depp’s lawyer’s statements that she and her companions had wrecked their flat before calling the cops.
She received $2 million in compensatory damages out of the $100 million she sought in her countersuit against her ex-husband, with no punitive penalties given.
Depp’s $5 million punitive damages award was eventually reduced by the judge to the Virginia maximum of $350,000, bringing his total to $10,350,000 – minus the $2 million he was ordered to pay Heard.
Depp will receive $8.35 million as a result of the settlement.
n a statement after the verdict Depp said: ‘Six years ago, my life, the life of my children, the lives of those closest to me, and also, the lives of the people who for many, many years have supported and believed in me were forever changed.
‘And six years later, the jury gave me my life back. I am truly humbled.’
Meanwhile, according to Heard, she said: ‘The disappointment I feel today is beyond words. I’m heartbroken that the mountain of evidence still was not enough to stand up to the disproportionate power, influence, and sway of my ex-husband.
‘I’m even more disappointed with what this verdict means for other women. It is a setback. It sets back the clock to a time when a woman who spoke up and spoke out could be publicly shamed and humiliated. It sets back the idea that violence against women is to be taken seriously.
‘I’m sad I lost this case. But I am sadder still that I seem to have lost a right I thought I had as an American – to speak freely and openly.’