Doug Stanhope Speaks Out Over The Johnny Depp Domestic Violence Claims

Just days after Amber Heard filed for divorce from Johnny Depp, she was granted an emergency restraining order, in light of her claims that her now estranged husband had been physically abusive to her over the course of their short marriage.

While pictures of Amber with a bruise on her face emerged, family and friends of Johnny - including his ex-wife Vanessa Paradis and daughter Lily-Rose Depp - rushed to his defence.

One person who has been particularly vocal in his support of Johnny is comedian Doug Stanhope (pictured with Depp below) who expressed his belief that Amber is blackmailing her husband in a guest column for The Wrap.

In it, he said:

“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 f—ing word.

Even though I knew it was bulls—.

We’d watched it build like this since before they were married. We’d watched her manipulate and f— with him for years. We didn’t say a word. To each other, yes, but never to him.”

He went on to explain that they didn’t raise their concerns with Johnny, as 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”.

He said that he and his girlfriend Bingo, who have known Johnny for only a few years “have watched Amber Heard f— with [Johnny] at his weakest — or watched him at his weakest from being f—ed with — for the entire time we’ve known him.”

“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 s—.”

He finished his column by saying:

“Abusing women is bulls—. Johnny doesn’t abuse anyone. And he told me that day ahead of time that she’d pull some kind of s— like this.

Johnny Depp got used, manipulated, set up and made to look like an a–hole. And he saw it coming and didn’t or couldn’t do anything to stop it.”

While Doug - along with others among Johnny’s friends - has made his opinion of Amber’s allegations clear, it will no doubt be sometime before the proper authorities, and a court of law, can establish the truth.