Row over how Johnny Depp lost top of finger at centre of libel fight
TWO “DIAMETRICALLY opposed” accounts of how Johnny Depp lost the top of his middle finger in a heated row with exwife Amber Heard is at the centre of his libel battle against The Sun newspaper.
The Pirates Of The Caribbean star, 56, is suing News Group Newspapers (NGN), the publishers of The Sun, and its executive editor Dan Wootton over an April 2018 article which alleged he was violent and abusive towards Ms Heard and referred to him as a “wife-beater”.
At a preliminary hearing yesterday, NGN’s barrister Adam Wolanski QC said Mr Depp lost the top of his finger “whilst in an alcohol and drug-addled rage against Ms Heard” when the pair were on holiday in Australia in March 2015.
He told the court Ms Heard, 33, who is giving evidence in support of The Sun’s defence, alleges Mr
Hollywood star is suing News Group Newspapers over an article in The Sun.
Depp had “shoved Ms Heard into a ping-pong table”, grabbed her and then “tore her nightgown” before he “slammed her against the countertop and strangled her”.
She claims that during the attack, which left her “scared for her life”, Mr Depp “severely injured his finger, cutting off the top” while he was smashing a telephone against a wall, Mr Wolanski said.
Mr Depp, however, claims Ms 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 said there were “diametrically opposed accounts of what happened” in Australia, and submitted that two “highly damaging” text messages sent by Mr Depp to his personal doctor, Dr David Kipper, later in March 2015 undermined his account.
The libel claim against NGN and Mr Wootton arises out of an article in The Sun in April 2018, under the headline “Gone Potty – How can JK Rowling be ‘genuinely happy’ casting wife-beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?”
Mr Depp has brought separate libel proceedings against Ms Heard in the US.