What happened with Paul Bettany and Johnny Depp? Text scandal explained as Avengers star distances himself from Oscar nominee

Paul Bettany, the fifty-five-year-old Vision Quest star, recently opened up to The Times about a misconception that followed him in the wake of Johnny Depp’s libel case against The Sun. Private text messages between Bettany and Depp were used as evidence in that trial, leaving many to assume the pair were close friends. Bettany, however, said that wasn’t the case at all.

“I hadn’t spoken to Johnny in years when that happened and I haven’t spoken to him since. I was being painted as this close friend of a guy I hadn’t spoken to in years and, honestly, amid all the sh*t two celebrities threw at each other, that bit was the most odd,” Bettany shared.

The WandaVision star also explained why he chose to stay quiet, rather than deny it publicly.

“So I decided to say nothing because, I think, people know me. I’ve been married twenty-three years and, for what I do, I live an incredibly quiet life. Everybody kind of thought this is probably a nothing burger – and left it alone,” he shared.

Inside the controversial text messages between Johnny Depp and Paul Bettany:

Private texts between the pair go back to 2013. They only became public in February 2020, read aloud during a court hearing, as per a report shared by Variety. (The text messages contained violent and degrading references to Heard; they are not reproduced here.)

The sixty-three-year-old was mid-battle with News Group Newspapers at the time, the publisher of The Sun, which had referred to him as a wife beater in a piece questioning JK Rowling’s backing of his Fantastic Beasts casting. Johnny Depp alleged the article caused serious harm to his personal and professional reputation and significant personal distress. Judge Andrew Nicol ruled against him later that year.

Paul Bettany and Depp had appeared together in The Tourist in 2010, Transcendence in 2014, and Mortdecai in 2015, a shared history that made the texts all the more surprising when they surfaced in court.

How Johnny Depp explained the text messages he sent about Amber Heard:

During the 2022 trial, Depp himself painted a very different picture of his relationship with Paul Bettany. As per a report shared by Entertainment Weekly, Depp testified that Amber Heard “despised” Bettany precisely because of how close the two men had become.

“For her, he was a threat and would take me away from her. If Paul Bettany were getting the attention from me, that was a showstopper,” he shared.

Paul Bettany, however, told The Times that he simply wasn’t in the picture during that period of Depp’s life.

“I didn’t know Johnny when he was married to Amber. I knew him before. But we hadn’t spoken for years. During the marriage I didn’t know them. So I wasn’t around for any of that,” he shared.

As for the texts themselves, Depp addressed them directly on the stand, saying he was “embarrassed” by what he called “heat of the moment” messages. He pointed to his admiration for Monty Python and his late friend Hunter S. Thompson as contributors to what he described as his “expressive” vocabulary.

“Sometimes pain has to be dealt with humor, and sometimes dark humor. I grew up watching Monty Python... I tend to be quite expressive in my writing,” he shared.

Of the “unfortunate words” exchanged, Depp added,

“I know that it cannot continue.”

What is Vision Quest about and what has Paul Bettany said about the new show:

Vision Quest follows a rebooted Vision attempting to keep a low profile while working at a pub in Edinburgh. As he works through his jumbled memories, he consults with the nefarious Ultron, played by James Spader, who remains embedded deep within his programming. Together, they attempt to unravel the mystery surrounding Thomas Shepherd, an eighteen-year-old boy who may or may not be Vision’s reincarnated son.

As per a report shared by Marvel, Paul Bettany reflected on the journey his character has taken over the years.

“It has been a fantastic journey, going from a voice inside Tony Stark’s suit to becoming an ingenue and omnipotent robot,” he shared.

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He also explained what sets this chapter apart from what came before.

“WandaVision was one of the highlights of my career, and I loved doing it, so I was really pleased when VisionQuest came along. This is a new exploration of the Vision character with a totally different energy… a father-son energy. It’s a father-son story disguised as science fiction,” Bettany added.

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