Depp ‘tore off Amber’s nightgown and tried to choke her’
Star has denied violence towards wife in libel trial
JOHNNY Depp tore off his wife Amber Heard’s nightgown, grabbed her breasts and choked her, the High Court heard yesterday.
The Hollywood star allegedly mocked her during the terrifying assault, it was claimed.
The court also heard ‘diametrically opposed accounts’ of how the 56-year-old lost the top of his middle finger during the incident.
Pirates of the Caribbean star Depp is suing The Sun for libel over an article which alleged he had abused Miss Heard, 33, who is now his ex-wife.
Depp denies being a ‘wife beater’, but yesterday Adam Wolanski, the newspaper’s QC, claimed that on the night of March 4, 2015, while on holiday in Australia, Depp ‘shoved Miss Heard into a ping pong table, threw bottles through window panels of a glass door, then grabbed Miss Heard and tore off her nightgown’.
He alleged the actor ‘grabbed Miss Heard by her neck and choked her against the refrigerator...mocked her, while touching and grabbing her by her breasts and repeatedly shoved her up against the refrigerator.’
Mr Wolanski added that the alleged attack had left Miss Heard ‘scared for her life’.
The High Court was given conflicting accounts of how Depp lost the top of his finger.
Mr Wolanski claimed he did it ‘whilst in an alcohol and drugaddled rage against Miss Heard’ as he was smashing a telephone against a wall. Depp, however, claims Miss Heard threw a glass bottle at him which smashed and fractured his finger – before she ‘put a cigarette out on the claimant’s right cheek’.
Mr Wolanski told the court about two text messages sent by Depp to his personal doctor, Dr David Kipper, later in March 2015 which he claimed undermined the actor’s version of events.
One text, sent shortly after the incident, read: ‘I cut the top of my middle finger off... What should I do!??’
A second message, sent around two weeks later, read: ‘Thank you for everything. I have chopped off my left middle finger as a reminder that I should never cut my finger off again.’
Yesterday the court was told that another fight between the couple, in early 2013, involved Depp falling to his knees and crying, blaming a ‘monster’ living within him. Mr Wolanski, summarising a statement made by Miss Heard, said: ‘He said he was sorry…He thought he had killed that other person. The monster as he called it. ’
Depp and Miss Heard met on the set of 2011 comedy The Rum Diary and married in 2015. In May 2016, Miss Heard obtained a restraining order against Depp after accusing him of abuse, which he denied. The couple settled their divorce out of court in 2017.
Mr Justice Nicol said yesterday: ‘I should emphasise that [Depp] has denied that there was any such violence – and whether there was or wasn’t will be a central matter to be determined in the trial.’
A trial is due to begin on Monday, but it may be derailed by the coronavirus crisis.
Neither Depp nor Miss Heard attended yesterday’s hearing. Mr Justice Nicol said he would decide whether the trial should go ahead at a hearing tomorrow.
‘Touching and grabbing her’ ‘Blaming a monster in him’