Amber: I hid injuries with heavy make-up on chat show
She says Depp attacked her the night before... then pair trade fresh insults outside courtroom
AMBER Heard was forced to use heavy make-up to conceal injuries inflicted by Johnny Depp when she appeared on a top US chat show, she told a jury.
The star appeared on James Corden’s Late Late Show in December 2015 after her then-husband had punched, headbutted and tried to suffocate her during a row the night before, she alleged.
Her makeup team had to ‘work around the lesions’ and apply ‘super heavy’ lipstick to cover the bruises and blood, she told the pair’s defamation trial.
The former lovers are in the midst of a bitter court battle in which Depp is suing Heard for $50million (£39.6million) over a 2018 newspaper piece in which she said, without naming him, that she was a survivor of domestic violence.
She is in turn suing him for double the amount after his lawyers called her a liar.
With proceedings now paused for a week in the middle of Heard’s testimony, the pair’s mudslinging ventured outside of the courtroom yesterday with both camps issuing stinging statements as they try to sway public opinion.
‘As Mr Depp’s counsel correctly predicted in their opening statements last month, Miss Heard did indeed deliver “the performance of her life” in her direct examination,’ a spokesman for the Pirates of the Caribbean star said.
‘While Miss Heard’s stories have continued to grow new and convenient details, Mr Depp’s recollections have remained exactly the same throughout the six painful years since her first allegations were made.
‘His truth – the truth – is the same no matter the environment in which it has been presented.
‘The upcoming cross examination from Mr Depp’s team will be most telling, and will certainly highlight the many fallacies Miss Heard has now attempted to pass off as fact.’
The Aquaman actress’s team responded: ‘As evidenced by the statement just released, Mr Depp’s defamation claim is falling apart so rapidly that his counsel are turning from prosecutor to persecutor. They boast that Mr Depp’s story has not changed.
‘If so, since he lost the domestic violence restraining order and he resoundingly lost the libel case in the UK [when a judge found allegations he was a ‘wife beater’ were ‘substantially true’], perhaps he should consider a new strategy rather than the recycled approach of attacking the victim and refusing to take responsibility for his own conduct.
‘If Mr Depp was truly innocent, why has he repeatedly apologised to Miss Heard and promised to put the “monster away for good”?
‘Small wonder Mr Depp does not have the fortitude or courage to even look at Miss Heard at all throughout the proceedings and instead he doodles and snickers. Mr Depp’s behaviour in this trial has been as pitiful as it was in their marriage.’
In the courtroom on Thursday, Heard told how she had to wear bright red lipstick on the Corden show because ‘nothing else would hide my busted lip’, which she said was still bleeding.
On the show, there was no sign of any injury as Heard promoted the film The Danish Girl.
But in photos shown to the court, she had bruising around her eyes and temples from the alleged attack.
Testifying at the court in Fairfax, Virginia, she said her ex-husband headbutted her and repeatedly punched her during the fight, dragging her along the floor by her hair, leaving clumps of it behind.
She said: ‘I thought this is how I die, he’s going to kill me now. He’s going to kill me and he won’t even have realised it.’
Heard said she passed out and woke up the next day with severe bruising on her face.
‘My lip was still bleeding and swollen so we did this thick super heavy matte red lipstick,’ she said. ‘We had no choice in colour.
‘Nothing else would hide my busted lip. I went on the show, did what I always do, told people I had an accident.’
The trial will resume on May 16.
‘From prosecutor to persecutor’