the times | Tuesday July 28 2020 2GM 15
News
The singer Ed Sheeran used to binge
eat until he was sick as he descended
into food and alcohol addiction.
Sheeran, 29, who has sold more than
26 million albums and 100 million
singles, said his “very addictive person-
ality” led him to consume too much
alcohol and two dinners at a time until
he had panic attacks and began hating
his appearance.
He said his lowest point was during a
180-date world tour to promote his
second album X, which hit No 1 in 2014.
He told the Chasing the Present sum-
mit on anxiety and wellbeing for Hay
House: “I would stay up and drink all
night and then sleep on the bus. The
buses would park underneath the
arenas and I’d sleep on the bus all day,
then wake up and come out, do the
and depressive episodes and for reduc-
ing the risk of suicide in people with
mood disorders.
Anjum Memon, chairman in epi-
demiology and public health medicine
at Brighton and Sussex Medical School,
who led the study, suggested the next
steps could include trials of lithium
supplementation in water supplies,
particularly in communities with a high
prevalence of mental health condi-
tions, violent criminal behaviour,
substance abuse and risk of suicide.
“This may provide further evidence
to support the hypothesis that lithium
could be used at the community level to
combat the risk of these conditions,” he
said. Worldwide more than 800,
people die by suicide every year.Johnny Depp’s Hollywood lawyer was
accused of preparing “false witness
statements” for the actor’s libel claim.
Adam Waldman arranged leaks to
the media and was instrumental in
obtaining evidence for Depp’s case after
The Sun accused the actor of being a
“wife beater”, the High Court was told.
Sasha Wass, QC, for News Group
Newspapers, the publisher of The Sun,
said “the brute force of Mr Depp’s PR
machine is deployed” after his wife,
Amber Heard, secured a domestic vio-
lence restraining order in May 2016.
The QC said that Mr Waldman was
“prepared to deploy threats and im-
proper tactics to secure [Depp’s] objec-
tive of ‘burning’ Ms Heard and subject-
ing her to ‘total global humiliation’ ”.
Sean Bett, Depp’s security guard,
claimed to have produced a photo-
graph he said he had taken showing
Depp injured by Heard after her 30th
birthday dinner in April 2016.
Information on the digital photograph
showed that it was taken a year earlier,
when Heard admitted punching Depp
because she feared he was about to
push her sister down a flight of stairs,
the court was told.
Mr Bett, a former Los Angeles police
officer, said that he had been sent the
photograph by Mr Waldman and had
not realised it was from a different date
as it looked similar to one he had taken.
Ms Wass said that this was an example
of Depp’s employees “forging evidence
on his behalf”. She added: “It is looking
like, more and more, that witness state-
ments have been prepared by Adam
Waldman — false witness statements.”
Mr Waldman, who attended the
High Court hearing, was accused by the
defence team earlier in the trial of post-
ing “macabre, threatening and sinister”
messages about witnesses. He wrote “in
memoriam” above tweets about evi-
dence relating to Laura Divenere, an in-
terior decorator, and Amanda de
Cadenet, the British TV presenter.
David Sherborne, for Depp, said that
Mr Waldman had written “in memori-
am” in relation to posts that highlighted
“Ms Heard’s lies” which have been “put
to bed”. Mr Justice Nicol said that the
use of the phrase was “unwelcome”.Lithium in drinking water
‘could reduce suicide risk’
Rhys Blakely Science Correspondent
Ed Sheeran: I’d eat until I was sick
show, drink, get back on the bus and I
didn’t see sunlight for maybe four
months. It’s all fun and games at the
start.
“It’s rock and roll, and then it starts
getting sad. That was probably the
lowest I’ve been and I kind of balloonedin weight.” He added: “They used to call
me two-dinner Teddy because I used to
order two meals and eat that. Then you
start putting on loads of weight and
hating the way you look. I think things
like sugar, sweet stuff, junk food,cocaine, alcohol — it feels good the
more you do but it’s the worst thing for
you.”
During the 2014-15 tour he “felt ‘what
was the point?’ In a dark way, like ‘Why
am I around? What is the point?’”
The musician said he had been read-
ing Elton John’s autobiography and
found “there are so many things he did
that I do. He would be like, ‘I would just
go on an ice cream binge and eat four
desserts until I throw it up’, and I was
like, ‘I’ve done that before’.”
Sheeran credited his wife, Cherry, for
helping him. “She exercises a lot, so I
started going on runs with her. She eats
quite healthily so I started eating quite
healthily. She doesn’t drink that much
so I wasn’t drinking,” he said.
Sheeran said he probably spent 19
hours a day on his phone in 2015, before
quitting social media.Fariha Karim
Naturally occurring lithium in drinking
water appears to be linked to reduced
numbers of suicides in certain regions,
scientists said yesterday.
The researchers collated data from
around the world and found that in
areas with relatively high levels of
lithium in water there was a 25 per cent
reduction in the risk of suicide com-
pared with areas with low levels.
The study, published in the British
Journal of Psychiatry, drew on informa-
tion from more than 1,200 cities and
counties in Austria, Greece, Italy,
Lithuania, UK, Japan and the US.
Lithium is used as a medication for
the treatment and prevention of manicJohnny Depp created a “misogynistic”
stereotype of his wife as “a nagging
woman” to justify violent attacks on
her, the High Court was told yesterday.
The Pirates of the Caribbean actor
abused Amber Heard and then discred-
ited her as a “gold-digger, shrew and an
adulterer” as part of a public relations
campaign, Sasha Wass, QC, said.
Depp, 57, is suing Dan Wootton, the
executive editor of The Sun, and its
publisher, News Group Newspapers
(NGN), over an article in 2018 that
called him a “wife beater”. The actor did
not attend the High Court for the first
time in the 15 days of the libel trial as Ms
Wass, for NGN, which also publishes
The Times, summarised the defence
case. Heard arrived at court with her
girlfriend, Bianca Butti, an actress.
Ms Wass told the court that Depp was
“part of a clique of ageing male rabble-
rousers” who abused alcohol and took
drugs together. The court has been told
that Depp took drugs with the Rolling
Stones guitarist Keith Richards, 76, the
musician Marilyn Manson, 51, and the
actor Paul Bettany, 49. “By the time he
approached 50 his lifestyle was starting
to take its toll and was destroying his
career and his health,” Ms Wass said.
Depp hoped that Heard, 34, would
help “save himself from his demons”
but grew to hate the actress because of
her “protectiveness”, Ms Wass said. “Mr
Depp had spent his entire adult life do-
ing exactly what he wanted and he was
not about to start answering to a
woman. It was a clash of cultures and
clash of generations. At the heart of Mr
Depp’s problem are two conflicting
forces: his love of the drugs culture and
his aspiration to be the Southern gen-
tleman with a young beautiful wife.
“When Mr Depp chose Ms Heard
as his life partner, he did not expect
her to carry on acting in films with
young and attractive actors. Mr
Depp was unable to control
[her] and... it had a detrimen-
tal effect on his state of mind.”
The QC said there was “no
doubt that Mr Depp
regularly and system-
atically abused his
wife”, whom he mar-
ried in February
- Ms Wass said
that while abusing
drugs and alcohol
the actor had
suffered irration-
al mood swings
and abnormal be-
havioural patterns. “Mr
Depp has a name for
Depp a hopeless addict, libel trial told
David Brown this metamorphosed entity, namely the
Monster,” Ms Wass said. Depp’s “re-
collection of his own disgraceful con-
duct” was so badly impaired by drug
misuse “that he may not even have been
aware of the extent of his violence”.
He resented Heard’s efforts to help
him maintain his sobriety and “created
a misogynistic persona of her as a
stereotype nagging woman”, Ms Wass
added. After Heard obtained a domes-
tic violence restraining order against
Depp in 2016 he turned to “old-fash-
ioned methods used to discredit a
woman: that she is a gold-digger, a
shrew and an adulterer”, Ms Wass said.
The QC described Depp as a “hope-
less addict” whose own doctor said “ac-
tually romanticises the whole drug cul-
ture”. The attacks were often caused by
Depp’s jealousy of Heard’s co-stars, in-
cluding Billy Bob Thornton, 64, and
James Franco, 42, Ms Wass added.
After their divorce Depp boasted to a
friend that he got the “charges dropped
for $5mil” having “settled with the
whore”, the court was told.
Ms Wass said that The Sun had to
prove on the balance of probabilities
that Depp beat Heard at least once. The
QC told Mr Justice Nicol that if he
found Heard to be a “truthful and plau-
sible witness” then her evidence alone
was enough to prove the defence case.
The Sun relies on 14 alleged incidents
of domestic violence. Depp denies them
and claims that Heard was violent.
Mr Justice Nicol said that he would
not rule on a claim that Heard left fae-
ces in the marital bed in April 2016. He
had said: “I’m struggling at the moment
to find why I would have to make a deci-
sion as to who defecated in this bed.”
The case continues.
6 Mickey Rourke challenged the Tesla
founder Elon Musk to a fight yester-
day over claims made during
Depp’s libel case. The court has
been told of Depp’s anger to-
wards Mr Musk, 49, who
has denied having an adul-
terous affair with Heard.
Mr Musk joked to The New
York Times at the weekend: “If
Johnny wants a cage fight,
just let me know.”
Rourke, 67, a
former boxer and a
friend of Depp,
wrote on Insta-
gram: “If Elon
Musk is in fighting
mood he can fight
someone his own
size, i’d gladly love
the opportunity to
take you to school
mr.tough guy.”
Star’s lawyer
accused of
dishonesty
David Brown
Amber Heard arriving at the High Court in London yesterday to hear the defence
summarise its argument that Johnny Depp had abused her. He did not attendVICTORIA JONES/PAThe singer said he
would binge on
ice cream and eat
four desserts