iO Tillett Wright called as Amber Heard witness: What Wright said on day 17 of defamation trial

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The first witness after Amber Heard stepped off the stand Tuesday recalled a conversation about a defecation incident during a pre-recorded deposition to the court.

In a taped deposition from March 2022, iO Tillett Wright — an author, producer and longtime friend of Heard, 36 — testified during the ongoing defamation trial that he received a phone call from Heard on May 21, 2016, asking him to clear up the infamous fecal matter incident.

Explaining the mess

According to Wright, Johnny Depp, 58, had swung by the former couple’s penthouse to pick up some items about a month after he found what he described as human excrement in their marital bed following a massive fight.

"[Heard] said, 'Johnny thinks that you and I together defecated on his pillow,'" he recalled. "I think the words used were ‘s--- on his pillow,’ so I started laughing." He and Heard guffawed, enraging the "Pirates of the Caribbean" star.

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Depp launches into rage?

Wright tried to explain that he wasn't at the apartment on the morning in question, then he heard a loud noise. Wright mimicked the sound by smacking his closed fist into his hand.

"The phone dropped, and he said to her, 'You think I hit you? You think I f---ing hit you? What if I peel your f---ing hair back?" Wright testified in a pre-recorded deposition. 

"I remember her screaming, and I hung up the phone," he said, as his eyes swelled with tears.

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He called her best friend, Raquel Pennington, who lived next door, then called the police. Heard testified that Depp smashed her cellphone into her face.

Wright further pressed that when he was under the influence of alcohol or drugs, Depp often turned "incredibly cruel and mean" and would hurl putdowns at his ex-wife.

Writer iO Tillett Wright testified on behalf of Amber Heard in a pre-recorded explanation of the infamous defecation incident. (Photo by Vincent Sandoval/WireImage)

"[Heard] has no talent," Depp allegedly told Wright. "And when her [breasts] start to sag and her face gets wrinkly, nobody is going to be interested in her for anything, so she better figure out another way to survive."

Elsewhere, during Tuesday's court testimonies, Heard's former best friend Pennington said they once had gotten into a physical altercation over a trivial matter as the two were preparing for Thanksgiving.

Trading jabs?

Throughout Heard's testimony, she referred to Pennington as her "best friend;" however Pennington, said in her deposition taken on Jan. 20 that they aren't as close as Heard made it seem during her own testimony.

"I wouldn't consider her not a friend," she said. "We don't speak. We are not enemies." 

Pennington said they met in 2003 and had recently grown apart. The last conversation they had was about Heard's baby.

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Pennington maintained that she and Heard exchanged physical lunges while looking for glasses and dishes.

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"We couldn’t find them anywhere, and then [Heard] finally found them in a place that I thought I had looked," Pennington recalled. "She thought that I wasn’t looking hard enough." 

Pennington shoved her, and Heard responded by hitting her on the cheek.

Pennington lived rent-free in one of Depp's Los Angeles penthouses up until the couple split up.

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The rest of Raquel Pennington's deposition is expected to be played for jurors Wednesday morning.