James Franco paid a late-night visit to Amber Heard’s California apartment hours after she claims Johnny Depp hurled a phone in her face after winding up his arm ‘like a baseball pitcher’ after he claimed she fouled in their bed as a dirty prank, it was revealed today.
The megastar is accused of hurling the mobile into Amber’s face ‘as hard as he could’ after a row in their Los Angeles penthouse as their marriage imploded in May 2016 – as the High Court was shown new pictures of her apparent injuries and CCTV of actor Mr Franco in a lift with Amber 24 hours later.
Ms Heard described the alleged attack as her ex-husband’s ‘final act of violence’, which she claimed happened after descending into a drug-fuelled rage.
But she has been has been accused of ‘faking’ her injuries with help from her friends Rocky Pennington and Joshua Drew, which Depp’s friends claim was part of a plan to ‘extort’ and ‘blackmail’ the star as they divorced.
The court was then shown CCTV footage from May 22 2016, the day after her fight with Depp in which he is alleged to have smashed up their penthouse and thrown a phone at her, leaving her with bruising to her face.
Heard can be seen getting into a lift with a man and turning her head away from the camera – and today she admitted it was actor James Franco, who Depp alleged, she was also having an affair with while married to him.
She admitted that he came to visit after 11pm and that she had a bruise on her face which had been caused by Depp. When accused by Eleanor Laws QC, representing Johnny Depp, of deliberately trying to hide her face from the camera, Heard insisted: ‘We were talking. He (Franco) was saying to me ‘Oh my God what happened to you?’ She added: ‘When I let him in, he saw my face and said ‘what the f**k.’
On another day of extraordinary evidence, it was claimed:
- Amber Heard claims that her ex-husband Johnny pushed Kate Moss down some stairs when they dated in the 1990s;
- Actress also alleged that a cocaine-crazed Johnny Depp threatened to break the wrist of her female friend because they were ‘flirting’;
- Ms Heard claims that her ex-husband would become so violent while on drink and drugs she feared he ‘might accidentally kill me without realising he had’;
- She denied that she had an affair with Elon Musk or ‘anybody else’ while she was with Johnny Depp;
- Heard insists it wasn’t her who left human excrement in Mr Depp’s bed as text reveals star suggested a friend leave a ‘dookie’ on the floor for Amber to step in;
This photo shown in court from May 2016 of Amber Heard with an apparently bruised cheek, which has been referred to as an exhibit in the hearing of Johnny Depp’s libel case against the publishers of The Sun
Amber’s cheek looks red in the photo – Mr Depp denies that he hurled a phone in her face and claims instead that she made it up
Another photo shown to court today shows a mark below her eye in an alleged attack Ms Heard claims was her ex-husband’s final act or violence towards her
Mr Depp (pictured today) has been accused of being jealous towards the majority of his ex-wife’s male co-stars and allegedly said she had affairs with at least eight of them
On her second day of her evidence at the High Court in London, Eleanor Laws QC, representing Johnny Depp in his libel case against The Sun’s publisher News Group Newspapers (NGN), cross-examined her on the incident, which the actor claims she made up.
The barrister began by asking Ms Heard about the events following an incident on May 21 2016 at the couple’s Los Angeles penthouse, when Ms Heard claims Mr Depp threw her own mobile phone at her, hitting her in the face – which Mr Depp denies.
Ms Laws asked about Ms Heard’s declaration in separate libel proceedings – brought by Mr Depp against her in the US – in which she said Mr Depp chased her friend Elizabeth Marz ‘out of the penthouse carrying a bottle’. Asked about the amount of damage Mr Depp is alleged to have caused in the penthouse, Ms Heard said: ‘I suppose he could have done even more damage.’
She added: ‘It appeared to me everything in his pathway.’
Ms Laws also asked about Ms Heard’s declaration that Mr Depp ‘destroyed all of Rocky’s beads’, referring to her friend Raquel Pennington.
She asked: ‘That’s a lie, isn’t it?’ Ms Heard said it was not. Ms Laws then took Amber Heard to a number of texts between her and her friends on May 22 2016, the day after the incident.
She said: ‘What you were doing in the morning… was trying to galvanise support from your friends.’
Ms Laws read a text from Ms Heard to Erin Boerum, a nurse who treated both Ms Heard and Johnny Depp during their relationship, which read: ‘It’s OK but he was completely delusional and crazed. Hit me in the face several times while on the phone to iO (Tillett Wright).’
The barrister: ‘That’s different to what you said yesterday.’
Ms Heard replied: ‘No. I don’t understand how it was different.’
She also explained that a reference to ‘she called the cops’ in that text referred to iO Tillett Wright because it was ‘before he changed pronoun… shortly after, he adopted male pronouns’.
Ms Laws also took Ms Heard to a text sent by her to iO Tillett Wright, that any statement on the events of May 21 2016 ‘would have gone straight to TMZ, which will happen on Monday anyway’.
The barrister suggested that the texts showed Ms Heard was telling her friends that she was going to obtain a restraining order.
Ms Heard replied: ‘I’m telling my support group and people that were there for the last attack.’
Amber Heard today denied Johnny Depp’s claims she was violent while they were married – saying the star considered any verbal insults to be like being punched.
The actor claims that his ex-wife enjoyed hitting him and was violent towards him throughout their marriage before it collapsed in 2016.
James Franco enters a lift in Depp’s apartment block in LA the day after she claims the star attacked her. She denies having an affair with Franco
The CCTV shows the former co-stars huddling in the lift and may be either whispering to each other or nuzzling
Ms Heard claims this was a fabrication. She said in her second witness statement published today: ‘Johnny has said I was continually verbally and physically assaulting him during our relationship – he paints a picture that I was somehow the instigator and the abusive partner.
‘That’s not true. It is true that I had to use my body and limbs to protect myself from Johnny’s violence and abuse. He also often referred to verbal insults, or even just perceived criticism, as ‘punches’ or ‘hits’. As someone who surrounded himself with people and created a life which meant he never had to face criticism or critical feedback of any kind, Johnny would often refer to even perceived criticism as ‘blows’, ‘jabs’ or ‘right hooks’.
The Aquaman actress, 34, instead claims she feared Mr Depp, 57, was ‘going to kill’ her on several occasions – and says he would later blame his actions on ‘the monster’, the megastar’s alleged ‘alter ego’ she says she was ‘terrified of’.
Mr Depp, who was mobbed by fans outside court with one handing him a bouquet of flowers, felt that being insulted was like being punched by Amber Heard (pictured today) who denies she was violent
Ms Heard then waved to waiting fans and photographers at the entrance to the Royal Courts of Justice in the capital
Amber Heard sketched giving evidence at the High Court in London yesterday while being watched by her ex-husband Johnny Depp who she has accused of threatening to kill her
On Tuesday, the 11th day of the trial at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, Ms Heard will continue to be questioned over 14 allegations of domestic violence, which the tabloid’s publisher News Group Newspapers (NGN) relies on in its defence of an April 2018 article that called Mr Depp a ‘wife beater’.
Johnny Depp trashed a caravan, threw glasses at Amber Heard and ripped open the front of her dress searching for narcotics after threatening to break her friend’s wrist for touching her on a cocaine-fuelled bender, his ex-wife claimed today.
The couple stayed at a trailer park in Hicksville, New York, in June 2013, when Ms Heard claims her megastar ex-husband exploded around the campfire when he believed another woman ‘flirted’ with her – calling Amber a ‘lesbian camp counsellor’.
In an explosive witness statement, published as she started her second day of evidence at the High Court in London, Ms Heard said: ‘He grabbed her by the wrist and threatened her by talking about the pressure that would be needed to break it if she didn’t admit that she was trying to flirt with me. Johnny and I went back to our trailer cabin where he continued to fight about it. By that point, the amount of cocaine he had taken affected his ability to make rational sense and he went into a manic state’.
Ms Heard the row then spilled into their trailer, which he allegedly ‘trashed in a rage’.
She said: ‘He broke light fixtures and he broke the frosted glass front of a cabinet, and I think he threw glasses at me. He accused me of being the moral police’ and ‘lesbian camp counsellor’ and of hiding his drugs. I had a pretty dress on that I’d dyed pink – and loved and wore all the time: he ripped one of the straps and then ripped it off me at the front, claiming to be searching for the drugs’.
Amber Heard smiled as she arrived at the High Court hand-in-hand with her girlfriend Bianca Butti for her second day in the witness box after making extraordinary claims about her tumultuous marriage to Johnny Depp.
Amber Heard smiled as she arrived at the High Court hand-in-hand with her girlfriend Bianca Butti for her second day in the witness box
Amber Heard arrives to give evidence for another day at the Johnny Depp v The Sun libel trial at the High Court
Mr Depp is accused of raging on cocaine during a 2013 row with Ms Heard who claims he threw glasses at her and ripped open her dress
Ms Heard has accused Mr Depp of verbal and physical abuse throughout their relationship, including screaming, swearing, punching, slapping, kicking, headbutting and choking her, as well as ‘extremely controlling and intimidating behaviour’.
Mr Depp, however, says he was ‘not violent towards Ms Heard – it was she who was violent to him’, and claims his ex-wife was ‘building a dossier’ of false allegations as an ‘insurance policy for later’.
On Monday, Ms Heard denied she had ‘thrown everything possible at Mr Depp’, telling the High Court: ‘I haven’t even scratched the surface.’
Yesterrday it also emerged Mr Depp made up childish names for Hollywood stars he accused Amber Heard of cheating with – including Leonardo ‘Pumpkin-head’ DiCaprio, the High Court heard yesterday.
He allegedly suspected his wife of sleeping with Eddie Redmayne, James Franco, Kevin Costner, Liam Hemsworth, Billy-Bob Thornton, Channing ‘Potato-head’ Tatum, Jim ‘Turd’ Sturgess and actress Kelli Garner.
Miss Heard said: ‘He demanded to know about any romantic scene and complained about how people can watch me ‘get ****ed on camera’.
‘I had to justify to him why I was doing any movie, and it was much worse if there was any kissing or a sex scene in it. He would taunt me about it – especially when he was drunk or high –and had derogatory nicknames for every one of my male co-stars he considered a sexual threat.’
‘Cocaine-crazed Johnny Depp threatened to break the wrist of Amber Heard’s female friend because they were “flirting”‘
Johnny Depp trashed a caravan, threw glasses at Amber Heard and ripped open the front of her dress searching for narcotics after threatening to break her friend’s wrist for touching her on a cocaine-fuelled bender, his ex-wife claimed today.
The couple stayed at a trailer park in Hicksville, New York, in June 2013, when Ms Heard claims her megastar ex-husband exploded around the campfire when he believed another woman ‘flirted’ with her – calling Amber a ‘lesbian camp counsellor’.
In an explosive witness statement, published as she started her second day of evidence at the High Court in London, Ms Heard said: ‘He grabbed her by the wrist and threatened her by talking about the pressure that would be needed to break it if she didn’t admit that she was trying to flirt with me. Johnny and I went back to our trailer cabin where he continued to fight about it. By that point, the amount of cocaine he had taken affected his ability to make rational sense and he went into a manic state’.
Ms Heard the row then spilled into their trailer, which he allegedly ‘trashed in a rage’.
She said: ‘He broke light fixtures and he broke the frosted glass front of a cabinet, and I think he threw glasses at me. He accused me of being the moral police” and “lesbian camp counsellor” and of hiding his drugs. I had a pretty dress on that I’d dyed pink – and loved and wore all the time: he ripped one of the straps and then ripped it off me at the front, claiming to be searching for the drugs’.
Amber: I didn’t have an affair with Elon Musk, James Franco or ‘anybody else’
Amber Heard, pictured with Tesla billionaire Elon Musk with her lipstick on her cheek, today denied they had an affair while she was married to Johnny Depp
Amber Heard denied that she had an affair with Elon Musk or ‘anybody else’ while she was with Johnny Depp.
Heard and Musk, pictured in Sydney, Australia, were just good friends, the actress has said
Eleanor Laws QC, Depp’s lawyer told the court that she was raising the matter of Heard’s ‘illicit’ relationships to challenge her claims that he was ‘illogically jealous.’
Heard replied: ‘We (Musk and Heard) had just become friends. All jealousy can be deemed as illogical.’
Ms Laws read out a number of texts between Heard and Elon Musk which were sent between them just hours after a fight she had with Depp on 21 May 2016.
In one, Musk offers to arrange security for Heard and in another he writes: ‘Sorry for being an idiot. The radio silence hurt a lot. It only matters because I so like you.’
When asked by Ms Laws if she had been in a relationship with anybody else while she was with Depp, Heard replied: ‘I was not in a relationship with Elon Musk during my relationship with Johnny.’
Heard was then asked about the testimony of Alejandro Romero, a concierge at the Eastern Columbia Building where she lived with Depp. He testified last week that Musk visited her regularly over a number of years while Depp was away.
Heard said: ‘He was wrong. I was not even communication with Elon until 2016.’
The court was then shown CCTV footage from 22 May 2016, a day after her fight with Depp in which he is alleged to have smashed up their penthouse and thrown a phone at her, leaving her with bruising to her face.
Heard can be seen getting into a lift with a man and turning her head away from the camera.
Heard admitted that the man in the lift with her was actor James Franco, who Depp alleged, she was also having an affair with while married to him.
She admitted that he came to visit after 11pm and that she had a bruise on her face which had been caused by Depp.
When accused by Laws of deliberately trying to hide her face from the camera, Heard insisted: ‘We were talking. He (Franco) was saying to me ‘Oh my God what happened to you?’
She added: ‘When I let him in, he saw my face and said ‘what the f**k.’
Amber Heard insists it wasn’t her who left human excrement in Johnny Depp’s bed
Amanda Heard denied that she was responsible for leaving human excrement on the bed she shared with Depp in their penthouse. The court has already heard details about the incident on 20 April 20, 2016, which was also Heard’s 30th birthday.
Depp claims that he made up his mind to divorce Heard after being informed about the excrement being left on their bed. She revealed in her statement submitted to court that the incident is referred to as ‘poogate’ by her and her friends.
Ms Laws said to Heard: ‘You left human excrement on the bed?’
Heard responded: ‘That’s absolutely disgusting.’
Ms Laws then asked her if any of her friends had left it, to which Heard replied: No, of course not. That’s unimaginable to me.’
Hilda Vargas, Depp’s housekeeper told the court last week how she discovered the excrement while she was cleaning up after the birthday party and then took photographs of it. These were sent to a member of the actor’s security team, who then alleged him.
Heard claimed that the excrement belonged to Depp’s dog Boo, who had a problem with her bowels after she ate some cannabis that belonged to Depp when she was a puppy.
Heard admitted that Vargas did clean up after the dog when it left excrement around the house but when it happened in the bedroom, she did.
Heard added: ‘She (Vargas) did clean up after them occasionally but as far as Boo’s accident in the bedroom, when that happened, sometimes on Johnny, I would clean that up because I would never leave that for the housekeeper to clean up.’
When asked about Vargas’s testimony, Heard responded: ‘I don’t know what she’s wrong about but I can’t fathom why an adult would ever do such a thing. I don’t think it’s funny or can be called a prank.
‘I can’t imagine any human being with a sense of humour like that other than Johnny.’
Referring to the discovery of the excrement, Heard added: ‘I was not there though, I left for Coachella. That was my bed, Johnny and I had separated, that was my bed and my bed only.’
Amber Heard denies beating up Johnny Depp and claims he described criticism and ‘verbal insults’ as ‘punches, jabs or right hooks’
Amber Heard today denied Johnny Depp’s claims she was violent while they were married – saying the star considered any verbal insults to be like being punched.
The actor claims that his ex-wife enjoyed hitting him and was violent towards him throughout their marriage before it collapsed in 2016.
Ms Heard claims this was a fabrication. She said in her second witness statement published today: ‘Johnny has said I was continually verbally and physically assaulting him during our relationship – he paints a picture that I was somehow the instigator and the abusive partner.
‘That’s not true. It is true that I had to use my body and limbs to protect myself from Johnny’s violence and abuse. He also often referred to verbal insults, or even just perceived criticism, as “punches” or “hits”. As someone who surrounded himself with people and created a life which meant he never had to face criticism or critical feedback of any kind, Johnny would often refer to even perceived criticism as “blows”, “jabs” or “right hooks”.
‘I FELT LIKE A WILD HORSE IN A CAGE’
Depp told the court how his wife had mocked him as ‘fat’ and ‘washed up’ and told him his career was over. Yesterday, she claimed he had branded her a ‘fat ass’ and told her: ‘No one will hire you when your t**s and ass sag.’ She said: ‘I don’t think that he really respects women. He likes ones that validate his ego, sexy ones. He doesn’t like powerful women, and he saw me as one of those. I remember describing it to a friend at the time as feeling like a wild horse in a cage; it was as if he wanted to break me.’
THREE-WAY MARRIAGE WITH ‘THE MONSTER’
Amber Heard said: ‘I’ve always had a relationship with two people. One was with Johnny and I loved Johnny, and I was not threatened by him. I was terrified of ‘The Monster’. The Monster was the third party in this relationship.
‘He would blame all his actions on [this] self-created third party instead of himself.’
Miss Heard claimed Depp was ‘very good at manipulating people’, and after his violent episodes, would often come back with a ‘sobriety coin’ from an alcoholics’ support group claiming ‘this time it was the end of his drinking’.
But she said she was not able to confront him about his alcohol and drug abuse because it was ‘very triggering for him’, adding: ‘He would get angry and call me ‘the moral police’.’
‘I DID THROW PANS’
After hearing an audio recording, Mr Justice Nicol asked Miss Heard: ‘Was it the case you sometimes threw pots and pans at Mr Depp?’ She replied: ‘Only to escape him.’ Depp has claimed he cowered in bathrooms to escape his wife.
Miss Heard denied being the instigator of their arguments, insisting she was ‘never violent’ towards Depp and did not have a problem with her temper. She said none of the other witnesses had seen their arguments which were ‘behind closed doors’. She added: ‘I did sometimes use physical force to defend myself when I was being attacked, or overpowered, or felt threatened. I did, at times, throw objects at Johnny.’
She said an incident on December 15, 2015, when she alleges Depp headbutted her and ripped hair from her head, made her ‘genuinely scared that he might accidentally kill me’.
The court heard part of a two-hour row recorded between the couple with Miss Heard calling him a ‘big f***ing baby’ and admitted starting a ‘physical fight’ with him. She can be heard saying: ‘I did not punch you, I did not deck you, I hit you – but you’re fine.’
MUSHROOMS AND WINE
Amber Heard’s medical history was recorded by Depp’s private nurse as: ‘Client admits to anxiety, eating disorder, ADHD, bipolar disorder, dependence issues.’ The actress described this as ‘very incorrect’. Nurse Erin Boerum added: ‘AH reports history of substance abuse.’ Miss Heard described the nurse’s notes as ‘a mistake’, insisting: ‘I am not a habitual drug user.’
She admitted to enjoying ecstasy and ‘mushrooms’, including doing both together at her 30th birthday celebrations in April 2016 at the Coachella music festival in California with a ‘high profile actor’ friend, when Depp wasn’t there.
Miss Heard admitted she did like wine but denied guzzling two bottles of red wine in an hour as her ex-husband claimed.
She claimed Depp’s doctor had prescribed her a cocktail of medications ‘and they were constantly being updated and changed to keep me sedated or calm’.
‘LIKE DATING A KING’
Depp and Miss Heard met on the 2011 film The Rum Diary. She said: ‘He was engaging and intellectual and dark and funny. He knew so much about life. When we were together, it was magic. When Johnny wanted to be affectionate towards you, he was intensely affectionate, warm and charming. It was like I was dating a king, with his level of fame and the way he lived.’
‘LONELIEST’ WEDDING
Miss Heard told the court about her ‘lonely’ 2015 wedding night claiming ‘possessive’ Depp kept vanishing to take drugs.
She said they argued on the night over his substance use. ‘He had lost weight and he would disappear into the bathroom for long periods during the wedding,’ she told the court.
‘I tried to smile through it and entertain our guests. But I had never felt more lonely in my life.’
‘HADN’T SEEN HIS FILMS’
Depp branded his ex a gold digger and accused her of building a ‘dossier’ against him as part of her ‘hoax’ claims of domestic abuse. But she hit back: ‘My so-called ‘agenda’ in marrying him, for financial benefit or to somehow further my career – that is preposterous. I remained financially independent from him the whole time we were together. It is not true I told him I admired his films early in our relationship – I was always very clear with him that I hadn’t seen his movies.’
‘DOG OUT OF WINDOW’
The actress told of her fears for her miniature Yorkshire terrier Boo when Depp allegedly held her out of the window of a moving car. She said: ‘I was scared that he could have dropped her. There was like a quiet alarm because no one wanted him to drop the dog, but no one reacted so as not to antagonise him which might make him do something even crazier.’
NAKED PHOTOS
Miss Heard said somebody hacked into her iCloud account and stole naked photos. She said they were ‘intimate photographs of me naked’ which had then been ‘altered and manipulated with all sorts of degrading headlines’ and ‘released to the world without my consent’. She told the court: ‘Johnny blamed me for that’, adding: ‘As you can imagine, it was extremely distressing.’
‘WEAPONISED VICTIMHOOD’
She claims self-confessed drug and alcohol addict Depp ‘lives in a state of weaponised victimhood’ by always blaming his troubled childhood, and surrounds himself with ‘yes men’. She said: ‘He functions off zero accountability. He is always the victim. No one really gives him direct or honest feedback. It is very rare to see anyone – professionals, doctors, lawyers, film executives –say no to him. I tried to, but it didn’t go down well.’
Miss Heard claimed Depp – who enjoyed cocaine, ecstasy and cannabis – ‘passed out a few times in the bathroom and had a history of vomiting in his sleep’.
When they went to his private island in the Bahamas to detox in August 2014, she said: ‘It was hell. Johnny was in a state of absolute mania at times. In one moment he would ask for hugs, the next he would yell at me.’ She claimed on August 17, ‘he kicked and pushed me so that I fell on the ground and grabbed my hair and slapped me. He was in such a rage that he smashed a door so hard that it splintered’. Depp has denied this.
The case continues.