Ryan Phillippe Explains Alleged Domestic Violence Incident With Ex: 'I Attempted to Pick Her Up Like a Baby'
By TheBlast Staff on May 26, 2019 at 11:01 AM EDT
Ryan Phillippe presented his side of the story about the night he allegedly attacked his ex-girlfriend, giving details in his own words of what went down, that led her to sue him.
According to court documents obtained by The Blast, Phillippe was deposed by lawyers for Elsie Hewitt, the girlfriend who claims he assaulted her after a party in July 2017.
Hewitt's lawsuit described the incident by claiming he first "violently threw her down his staircase as hard he could." After she got up, Hewitt then claims that Phillippe "picked Hewitt up like a doll and tossed her down the stairs."
Phillippe and Hewitt got into an argument at his house after he left a party because he allegedly felt Hewitt was not paying enough attention to him. She used a code to his home to get incident to retrieve her things and that is when the alleged incident occurred.
In his deposition, Ryan Phillippe said of the night of the incident, "You know, this was an impasse. Nothing was changing. And she was refusing to leave until she got into the bedroom. And at one point, I thought that I was going to try to remove her from the premises and set her outside and close the door. Because I didn't know what else to do."
He then explains, " And at that point, it hadn't occurred to me to call the cops. I'm a famous person. I didn't want to bring that kind of attention to me and my house. And so I attempted to pick her up like a baby. Carrying. Like a child. With one arm under the back and one arm under the legs. And she was flailing. And I made it one step, and I fell back on my bottom, holding her. And that was it."
Sources close to the case tell us, Elise and her legal team believe the explanation about falling on his "bottom" is just an excuse for throwing her down the stairs.
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Phillippe's assistant, Brady Ricci, was also deposed about the incident. He was not there on the night in question but says that Phillippe told him he picked Hewitt up to carry her down the stairs and made no mention of falling or throwing her.
Hewitt was with a friend that evening who backed up her version of events. The friend, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Blast a few months after the incident that Phillippe "picked her up like a baby and tossed her down the stairs."
A message that friend sent to Phillippe after the incident was entered into the case. In it, she says she "saw the whole thing" and claims that Phillippe "threw her down the stairs."
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In her lawsuit, Hewitt accused Phillippe of abusing drugs like “cocaine, ecstasy, psychedelic mushrooms, and steroids.” She even filed documents claiming that his drug use might affect his "ability before, during and after the alleged incident to recollect the incident correctly.”
But when deposed by Hewitt's lawyers, Ryan Phillippe said that on the night of the incident, the only drug he took was marijuana.
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As The Blast first reported, Elsie Hewitt sued the actor for $1 million accusing him of assaulting her at his Los Angeles home. She claimed after an argument with the actor, she went to his house to get her belongings.
Once she arrived, she claimed Phillippe was extremely agitated, grabbed her upper arm “so tightly that his grip left heavy bruises on her arm” and then “braced his body and violently threw her down his staircase as hard as he could.”
Ryan Phillippe denied all allegations of assault and accused his ex-girlfriend of trying to extort him with false allegations. He claimed to have only treated her with “kindness and respect” during their relationship and never physically harmed her.
The case is ongoing.