Make-up artist confirms Amber Heard’s injuries
AMBER HEARD denied doctoring photos of injuries allegedly caused by Johnny Depp which had to be covered up later by her make-up artist so she could appear on James Corden’s show, a court heard yesterday.
The actress says heavy make-up had to be applied to the bruises before her appearance on The Late, Late Show, the day after her husband is said to have attacked her. Hollywood make up artist Melanie Inglessis said Ms Heard told her Mr Depp had tried to suffocate her with a pillow, dragged her by her hair and “tried to kill” her at the couple’s Los Angeles penthouse in December 2015.
Ms Inglessis told the High Court that she had to apply concealer and lipstick to Ms Heard’s face to cover the bruising so she could go on Corden’s prime-time talk show.
Giving evidence via video link from Los Angeles, Ms Inglessis said: “She said ‘Johnny and I had a fight’, she said he tried to suffocate her with a pillow, she felt he tried to kill her that night and dragged her by her hair.”
Describing Ms Heard’s appearance the day after the alleged attack Ms Inglessis told the High Court: “She had minimal discolouration by her nose, her left eye a little more bruised than her right eye, the bridge of her nose swollen and I remember a scab to the right of her lip.”
She added: “I tried to conceal some of the bruises with a full face of makeup. We had no other choice but to do a bright red lip [stick] to cover the injury on her lip.”
Ms Inglessis had to be compelled to testify in the case as she feared that doing so would destroy her career in the film industry.
Her evidence came during Mr Depp’s libel case against the publisher of The Sun newspaper for labelling him a “wife beater”. As part of the newspaper’s defence Ms Heard, 34, has accused him of both verbal and physical abuse throughout their relationship – allegedly punching, slapping, kicking, headbutting and choking her during frequent drink and drug-fuelled rages.
Mr Depp’s barrister, Eleanor Laws QC, asked whether Ms Heard had altered photographs taken of her without make-up before her appearance on The Late, Late Show. Ms Heard has described the incident as “one of the worst and most violent nights of our relationship”. The court was shown a set of photographs appearing to show Ms Heard’s bruised face and the 34-year-old actress was asked: “Have you played around with these images in any way?”
Ms Heard replied: “I don’t know how to, no.”
Ms Laws asked: “You don’t know how to change colouring or anything of that nature?”
The Aquaman actress responded: “No, I don’t know how to do that.”
Ms Laws put it to Ms Heard the photograph of her with bruises on her face was “completely set up”, which she denied. Ms Heard said nobody other than Ms Inglessis had noticed the bruises because she had applied make-up to cover them up.
She had earlier described how Mr Depp pelted her with around 30 bottles during what she claims was a three day “hostage situation” in Australia in March 2015. Giving evidence for the third day, Ms Heard described how the incident began when she took a bottle of liquor from him and smashed it on the floor because she did not want him to drink any more.
She said this prompted a furious response from her husband, claiming: “He reached for a bottle and started throwing them like grenades, bombs, one after the other in my direction.
“I felt glass breaking behind me. I retreated into the bar and he didn’t stop. I was so scared to look behind me.”
Mr Depp maintains he was never violent towards Ms Heard, claiming that she was violent to him on several occasions. The hearing continues.