Fingertip search for Depp’s digit!
Doctor tells court of grisly hunt after warring Hollywood couple had violent row in kitchen
JOHNNy Depp’s personal doctor last night described the grisly hunt for his fingertip after it was allegedly severed during a fight with his exwife Amber Heard.
Dr David Kipper told a US court that Depp’s team scoured the property in Australia in March 2015 before finding it in the kitchen.
The Pirates of the Caribbean star had told A&E doctors that he had cut it off with a knife, the trial heard.
This contradicts his lawyers’ claim that Miss Heard severed it by throwing a vodka bottle at him during a row.
The testimony emerged on the fourth day of the defamation trial in Fairfax, Virginia. In court, Depp had swept his hair back into a ponytail after letting it hang loose last week.
It comes two years after they came head-to-head at the High Court in London.
Depp, 58, claims he lost the role of Jack Sparrow in the Pirates films after Miss Heard wrote a 2018 piece for the Washington Post claiming she was the survivor of domestic abuse.
He is demanding $50million (£38million) while Miss Heard, 35, has countersued for $100million (£77million) claiming he tried to get her fired from her roles in a ‘smear campaign’. Dr Kipper, a Beverly Hills physician whose previous clients included Ozzy Osbourne, appeared via a pre-recorded video deposition. He told the court that Depp flew him to Australia in 2015 where he was filming Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.
Miss Heard’s lawyers said that in Australia she was subjected to a ‘three-day hostage situation’ where Depp was repeatedly violent towards her.
After Depp’s fight with Miss Heard, Dr Kipper said he went to their home and treated him in a car before he went to the hospital. The doctor said he went in to the property to help ‘look for the tip of the finger’ and that the chef found it in the kitchen where Depp and Miss Heard had been fighting.
Under questioning from Miss Heard’s lawyers, Dr Kipper confirmed he had received a text from Depp on March 7, 2015, saying that he ‘cut his finger’.
The text had already been read to the court and in the message, Depp said Miss Heard was ‘as full of s*** as a Christmas goose’ and called her a ‘malicious, evil and vindictive c***’.
He also wrote: ‘I cut the top of my middle finger off. What should I do? Go to the hospital? I’m so embarrassed for jumping into anything with her. F*** THE WORLD.’
The court also heard from Debbie Lloyd – a nurse who Dr Kipper hired to work with Depp. She recounted her medical notes of her first meeting with Depp in June 2014. The documents said that he initially took opiates after some dental work and became ‘dependent’ on them. Dr Kipper told the court that he started treating Depp in May 2014 and that his initial diagnosis for him was: ‘ADHD, Bipolar 1, depression, insomnia, chronic substance abuse disorder, chronic reflux.’
Later in the year, Dr Kipper began to treat Miss Heard.
One of Depp’s lawyers asked Dr Kipper: ‘Did she [Miss Heard] ever seek treatment for injuries as a result of domestic abuse?’ Dr Kipper replied: ‘No she did not.’ The lawyer also asked: ‘Did she ever seek treatment for injuries caused by Mr Depp?’ The doctor said: ‘No, she did not.’
During the 2020 trial in London, a judge ruled that a claim by The Sun newspaper that Depp was a ‘wife beater’ was ‘substantially true’.
The pair married in 2015 – but in May 2016, Miss Heard filed for divorce. The Virginia trial is expected to last six weeks.
‘Evil and malicious’