Johnny Depp allegedly threatened to "burn" and "drown" his ex-wife Amber Heard in texts sent to his friend, which were read in a London courtroom Wednesday.
The "Pirates of the Caribbean" star was present when the previously unseen messages dating back several years were presented, according to New York Daily News.
"Let's burn Amber," Depp purportedly wrote in a text to fellow actor Paul Bettany on Nov. 6, 2013.
The 56-year-old actor carried on his tirade in another message to Bettany that read, "Let's drown her before we burn her!!!" and another that used an expletive to suggest he would have sex with "her burnt corpse afterwards to make sure she is dead," the court heard.
Depp was in court for a hearing in his libel suit against U.K. tabloid The Sun's editor Dan Wootton and the publication's parent company, News Group Newspapers, for a 2018 article alleging he was abusive toward Heard.
Commenting on the claim, Depp's lawyer Adam Waldman accused The Sun of keeping Heard's "hoax alive" by "cherry-picking a fragment of a single frustrated text message to a friend sent out of 500 gigabytes of text and email messages provided."
Waldman then read out another text in which Depp said he could not "spray my rage at the one I love."
Depp and Heard were dating at the time that the messages were sent. They tied the knot in 2015 and the following year Heard filed for divorce.
Days later she obtained a restraining order against her estranged husband, after accusing the actor of verbal, emotional, and physical abuse. They reached a private settlement as Heard threatened to testify against Depp in court.