Names and faces
■ Johnny Depp’s highstakes libel case against a British tabloid that accused him of assaulting exwife Amber Heard wrapped up Tuesday in a London court, with the star’s lawyer calling Heard “a compulsive liar” and claiming that Depp was the real victim of abuse in the relationship. The “Pirates of the Caribbean” star is suing News Group Newspapers, publisher of The Sun, and the newspaper’s executive editor, Dan Wootton, over an April 2018 article that called him a “wife-beater.” In closing arguments at the three-week trial, Depp’s lawyer, David Sherborne, said the actor denied “this reputation-destroying, career-ending allegation.” “He has never hit a woman in his entire life — period, full stop, nada,” Sherborne said. Judge Andrew Nicol did not immediately make a ruling. Neither Depp, 57, nor Heard, 34, is on trial in a case that dissected their toxic celebrity love affair. Heard claims Depp turned into a violent alter ego he called “The Monster” under the influence of alcohol and drugs, accusing him of 14 incidents in which he hit, slapped and shoved her, pulled her hair and threw bottles at her “like grenades.” Depp called the allegations a “hoax” and claimed that Heard hit him instead. News Group Newspapers’ lawyer, Sasha Wass, said in her closing that there was no doubt Depp “regularly and systematically abused his wife” and so the “wife-beater” label was justified. But Sherborne said The Sun’s article gave the false impression Depp had been “tried, convicted and sentenced” for domestic violence.
■ Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, who recovered from covid-19 and whose moving Easter performance sought to raise hopes during the pandemic, is striking a different public note, saying Italy’s lockdown made him feel “humiliated and offended” by depriving him of his freedom. Bocelli spoke on a panel Monday in an Italian Senate conference room, where he was introduced by right-wing opposition leader Matteo Salvini, who has railed against the government’s measures to combat the coronavirus outbreak, which at the height of lockdown allowed Italians to leave home only to go to essential jobs, walk dogs or buy food or medicine. Bocelli said that he resented not being able to leave his home even though he “committed no crime” and revealed that he had violated that lockdown restriction. Bocelli’s statements were made on the eve of Premier Giuseppe Conte’s appearance in the Senate, where he laid out his government’s case for extending for three months a state of emergency for the pandemic, which expires Friday. Conte said the extension is aimed at allowing an efficient response should the virus spike again, and accused the opposition of using “polemical and even ideological veins” in the debate.