Following the recent allegations from Amber Heard that her husband, Johnny Depp, had been physically abusing her, there has been a lot of discussion on the issue.

While bruises around the eye are physically visible on recent photos of Amber - who was granted a restraining order against her husband by a US judge last week (although police found no proof that a crime had occurred) - both Johnny Depp's former partner, Vanessa Paradis, and his daughter Lily-Rose have come out in support for the actor, describing him as "loving" and "sweet".

And now the Pirates of the Caribbean star's friend, stand-up comedian Doug Stanhope, has also publicly sided with Johnny. But not only has he shown the actor his full support, he's even gone to the lengths of alleging that Amber has been blackmailing his friend.

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Doug with Johnny and his daughter, Lily-Rose

In a guest column written for The Wrap, Stanhope described Amber Heard's accusations as "bullshit", and described how hard it was to watch Johnny be "murdered" on social media over the allegations of abuse.

He then gave some context as to why he feels so strongly about what he's saying.

"We'd watched it build like this since before they were married. We'd watched her manipulate and fuck with him for years. We didn't say a word. To each other, yes, but never to him."

And why not?

"When your friend is in an awful, abusive relationship — man or woman — and you risk weighing in that their counterpart is a demon, you know the odds are they will jump right back into the fire and then dump you from their life for being honest," Doug explained.

And he went on to say that he and his girlfriend "have watched Amber Heard fuck with him at his weakest — or watched him at his weakest from being fucked with — for the entire time we've known him."

Doug then described how he was with Johnny on the day of the alleged iPhone-throwing incident. "We assumed initially that his dour mood was because of his mother's death the day before," Stanhope wrote. "But he opened up in the most vulnerable of ways that it was not only his mother, but that Amber was now going to leave him, threatening to lie about him publicly in any and every possible duplicitous way if he didn't agree to her terms. 

"Blackmail is what I would imagine other people might put it, including the manner in which he is now being vilified."

Finishing off his pretty bold statement, Doug wrote:

"Abusing women is bullshit. Johnny doesn't abuse anyone. And he told me that day ahead of time that she'd pull some kind of shit like this.

"Johnny Depp got used, manipulated, set up and made to look like an asshole. And he saw it coming and didn't or couldn't do anything to stop it."

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