Johnny Depp Responds To Claims He Defaced A Painting By Drawing A Penis On It

The Pirates of the Caribbean star took the stand for the third day running in his defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard, which started in Virginia last week. 

Under cross examination from Heard's lawyer J. Benjamin Rottenborn, Depp was questioned about the incident in Australia, which unfolded in 2015. 

In his testimony yesterday (20 April), the 58-year-old actor claimed his finger was sliced off after Heard, 35, threw two vodka bottles at him. 

However, Heard’s team questioned why Depp didn’t tell this to the medical staff who treated his injury at the time. 

Today, Rottenborn turned the focus to the aftermath when Depp ‘used his finger as a paintbrush’ and drew messages on the wall of the Australian home in his own blood. 

“Do you remember there was quite a lot of blood everywhere including on floors and sofas?” said the lawyer.

In response, Depp said: “I noticed that I was leaking and there was heat in my finger and I felt this warmth and this liquid and I noticed that the tip of my finger was gone. 

“And at that point I think I went into some sort of shock or whatever is closest to a kind of nervous breakdown.”

Rottenborn then said: “Yeah you testified that breakdown. You could’ve also defaced a painting by drawing a penis on it, didn’t you?”

Depp replied: “I don’t know about that, I don’t remember drawing a penis on a painting.”

When the lawyer suggested that, ‘given the state’ Depp was in, he could’ve drawn the penis and not remembered it, Depp remarked: “Drawing a penis on a painting was not the first thing on my mind.

“I had messages to write, reminders.”

The conversation continued in this manner before Depp was once again asked whether he denies defacing the painting. 

Depp concluded: “Well, given that I had written some messages on the bathroom mirror and then Ms Heard added to them, it’s also not impossible Ms Heard may have drawn a penis on a painting somewhere.

“I… that’s not where I was going.”

Depp is seeking $50 million in damages in the lawsuit, which accuses Heard of falsely implying she was a victim of domestic abuse during her marriage to Depp in a 2018 opinion piece written for The Washington Post.

The trial, which began on 11 April and is being presented to 11 jurors, is expected to conclude in May.