lawsuits

Johnny Depp Now Claims Amber Heard ‘Painted on’ Her Bruises

Amber Heard and Johnny Depp.
Amber Heard and Johnny Depp. Photo: John Phillips/Getty Images

Amber Heard and Johnny Depp finalized their contentious divorce in 2017, amid allegations that he abused her. (Heard donated the $7 million divorce settlement she received to a children’s hospital and the domestic violence unit of the American Civil Liberties Union.) Depp has since filed a $50 million defamation lawsuit against Heard, and in a new filing, accuses his ex-wife of “painting on” her bruises, The Guardian reports.

Depp, 55, and Heard, 33, got married in 2015, and the actress came forward to accuse her then-husband of abuse and received a restraining order in 2016. Later, in a December 2018 op-ed for the Washington Post, Heard wrote that since speaking out about her abuse allegations, she has faced death threats and lost out on professional opportunities. Heard did not mention her ex-husband by name in the piece. Months after the op-ed was published, Depp filed his lawsuit, claiming Heard “is not a victim of domestic abuse, she is a perpetrator,” and that the allegations were an “elaborate hoax to generate positive publicity”

In a new filing — which comes weeks after Heard asked a court to dismiss the lawsuit, saying that she feared Depp “might kill” her while they were married — Depp writes in a declaration, “I never abused Ms. Heard or any other woman,” and claims Heard “committed innumerable acts of domestic violence against me.” He continues: “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 … I will continue to deny them for the rest of my life.”

Heard’s attorney Eric George denied Depp’s allegations in a statement to People. “The evidence in this case is clear: Johnny Depp repeatedly beat Amber Heard,” George told the outlet. “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.”

Johnny Depp Now Claims Amber Heard ‘Painted on’ Her Bruises