Paul Bettany Addresses Johnny Depp Texts in Friendship Update

As for why the 55-year-old stayed quiet about the nature of his friendship with Depp?

“I decided to say nothing because, I think, people know me,” said Bettany, who met wife Jennifer Connelly on the set of 2001’s A Beautiful Mind. “I’ve been married 23 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.”

E! News has reached out to Depp’s rep for comment but hasn’t heard back.

Previously, Bettany described the unearthing of his and Depp’s texts as pouring “fuel on the fire” of the 63-year-old’s legal disputes.

“Can you imagine what it would be like, honestly, to have a bunch of lawyers go through every one of your emails and texts for 10 years?” he told The Independent in 2021. “All I can tell you was that it was an unpleasant feeling.”

During Depp’s defamation trial against Heard, he described Bettany as one of his “close friends” and testified that their text exchange was a reference to a Monty Python sketch about burning witches.

While a transcript of the conversation did show Bettany eventually rebuffing the idea, calling Heard “delightful company and easy on the eyes,” Depp testified that his ex-wife “despised” their friendship.

“For her, he was a threat and would take me away from her,” said Depp, who costarred with Bettany in 2010’s The Tourist, 2014’s Transcendence and 2015’s Mordecai. “If Paul Bettany was getting attention from me, that was a showstopper. It would cause all kinds of unpleasantries.”

Read on for more eyebrow-raising moments from Depp’s trial against Heard.