Amber Heard hired ex-porn star-turned-detective to dig up dirt on Johnny Depp

Amber Heard hired a private eye who was supposed to find other women Johnny Depp had physically abused, but came up empty. Photo: Reuters

Amber Heard hired a private detective who used to be an adult film star to dig up dirt on her ex-husband, Johnny Depp, in the summer of 2019.

Paul Barresi was a mustachioed stud who appeared in Co-ed Fever, Bad Girls II and other X-rated films.

Reinvented as a private detective, he’s worked for Tom Cruise, Eddie Murphy and Sylvester Stallone.

Now he’s an issue in Depp’s US$50mil defamation suit against his ex-wife, who claims the actor repeatedly assaulted her.

In a deposition taken in April 2021, Depp’s lawyer Ben Chew asked Heard’s former attorney Eric George whether he was aware of Barresi’s history in adult film. When George’s lawyers instructed George not to answer, Chew quickly said: “We’re going to fight this another day.”

Chew then asked George what tasks he gave to Barresi with respect to investigating Depp. This inquiry was also met with objection from George’s counsel and instructions for him not to answer.

Barresi told me: “It was Amber herself who assigned me to find incidences involving Johnny’s past bad acts, going as far back as the Viper Room days.”

The private eye was supposed to find other women Depp had physically abused, but came up empty.

“Mr Chew was going down a rabbit hole when he quizzed Mr George about my former adult entertainment career,” Barresi said.

He added: “It was hypocrisy of the highest order. Evidently Mr. Chew forgot that Johnny Depp’s co star in Cry-Baby was Traci Lords, one of the most controversial and notorious divas in adult entertainment history.”

Barresi starred with Lords six years earlier in 1984′s Miss Passion. Barresi said: “Unlike Johnny in Cry-Baby however, the big-screen exposure I got in Miss Passion was without the benefit of clothes.”

Barresi added: “Johnny’s lawyer should be very pleased that after three months of investigating Johnny, the only thing I found out about him was that everybody loved him.” – Richard Johnson/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service