DISS & ‘MAKEUP’
Johnny Depp has accused exwife Amber Heard of painting fake bruises on her face to “fabricate” claims of domestic violence against him, while claiming he was the true abuse victim.
Addressing Heard’s allegations for the first time, Depp says in a court filing that the actress’ claims that he repeatedly attacked and abused her are “categorically and demonstrably false.”
Depp claims bruises seen on Heard’s face and shown in photos as she appeared in a Los Angeles court in 2016 were “painted on.”
“I have denied Ms. Heard’s allegations vehemently since she first made them in May 2016, when she walked into court to obtain a temporary restraining order with painted-on bruises that witnesses and surveillance footage show she did not possess each day of the preceding week,” Depp says in the new court papers.
“I will continue to deny them for the rest of my life. I never abused Ms. Heard or any other woman.”
Depp, 55, filed a $50 million defamation suit against Heard, 33, in Virginia last year after she wrote a Washington Post op-ed about being a domestic-abuse victim.
Depp was not named in the piece but argues it strongly implied he was the perpetrator.
Heard responded to the suit last month by detailing alleged “horrific” abuse she claimed she suffered at the hands of Depp, who she said became “the Monster” when he drank and abused drugs.
In court papers first seen by Page Six, Heard alleged that Depp hit her on numerous occasions, dragged her by her hair, smashed bottles and her possessions and choked and nearly suffocated her.
But Depp claims that she was lying and that she was violent toward him “while mixing prescription amphetamines and nonprescription drugs with alcohol.”
“There was actual, documented domestic violence in our relationship: She was the perpetrator, and I was the victim,” he says in the new court papers in the Virginia case and reported by The Blast.
“She hit, punched and kicked me. She also repeatedly and frequently threw objects into my body and head, including heavy bottles, soda cans, burning candles, television remote controls, and paint-thinner cans, which severely injured me,” he claims.
In the new filing, Depp attempts to refute each incident detailed by Heard accusing him of violence.
“After years of asserting my innocence, I am finally in a position to prove it by dismantling each element of her hoax,” he says.
The “Pirates of the Caribbean” star says the final straw in their yearlong marriage came in April 2016, when he found feces in his bed the morning after an alleged violent domestic incident.
“After I removed myself from Ms. Heard’s presence in the penthouse on April 21, 2016, the following morning Ms. Heard or one of her friends defecated in my bed as some sort of a sick prank,” he said, adding it was after that incident that “I resolved to divorce Ms. Heard.”
Depp concludes, “Cynically relying on the concept of #believewomen that has been promoted as part of the important #MeToo movement, Ms. Heard’s ‘evidence’ rests primarily on her word and that of her dependent friends. She and they have falsely accused me of violence, although interestingly none of her ‘witnesses’ say they ever witnessed any violence.
“And they did this despite the inconvenient truth of my possession of eyewitness statements provided under penalty of perjury and photographs of her converse violence committed against me, overwhelming evidence that her various abuse claims and the injuries that she claimed ensued from them are hoaxes, the fact of her own prior arrest and incarceration for domestic violence against her previous wife, and new witnesses who are now coming forward to describe the brutal violence they suffered at her hands.”
Heard’s attorney, Eric George, shot back, accusing Depp of concocting “baseless blame-the-victim conspiracy theories.”
“The evidence in this case is clear: Johnny Depp repeatedly beat Amber Heard,” he said. “The increasingly desperate attempts by Mr. Depp and his enablers to revive his career by initiating baseless litigation against so many people once close to him — his former lawyers, former managers and his former spouse — are not fooling anyone.”