Johnny Depp denies attacking Amber Heard after learning he was swindled out of $650m by former manager

Johnny Depp says he did not attack then-wife Amber Heard after discovering he was swindled by former business manager.

Actor Johnny Depp arrives at the Royal Courts of Justice, Strand on Monday. Picture: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Johnny Depp was swindled out of $US 650 million ($AU 937m) by his former business manager, he told the High Court in London on Monday.

The Pirates of the Caribbean star denied attacking Amber Heard, then his wife, on her 30th birthday after he discovered the loss and that his taxes had not been paid for 17 years.

Giving evidence, he said that he had probably smoked cannabis after the “unpleasant and ugly” meeting about his finances. Depp, 57, is suing Dan Wootton, the executive editor of The Sun, and the publisher of the newspaper over an article in 2018 that described him as a “wife beater”.

“I was in the early stage of learning from my recently acquired new business manager that the former business managers had [taken] quite a lot of my money. They had stolen my money,” he said. “It was put to me this way. Because I had no idea about money or amounts of money. Since Pirates 2 and 3 I had — and this is ludicrous to have to state, it’s quite embarrassing — apparently I had made $US 650 million.

“When I sacked them [the business managers] I had not only lost $US 650 million, but I was $US 100 million ($AU 144m) in the hole because they had not paid the government my taxes for 17 years.”

Depp said that he smoked the drug as a “calming agent” before returning home for his wife’s 30th birthday dinner in April 2016. He denied being violent to Heard, a star of the Aquaman superhero movie.

Edward White, Depp’s accountant, agreed that the actor received “catastrophic” news at the meeting that “clarified his financial position”, including that his “tax had not been paid on his behalf for several years”.

Elon Musk a ‘regular late night visitor’

The High Court was also told that Heard appeared with injuries to her neck and arm after apparently spending the night with Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla. The billionaire was allegedly a “regular” late-night visitor to her penthouse apartment for a year while her husband was away filming.

Trinity Esparza, who ran the concierge service at the Los Angeles building where Depp owned penthouses, said the only time she saw Heard with injuries was after Mr Musk had appeared to spend the night. She said an employee told her he had seen Mr Musk, 49, visiting Heard “many times … late at night when Mr Depp was away for more than a year”.

Elon Musk was regular visit to Heard’s penthouse while Depp was away filming, the court was told. Picture: Brendan Smialowski/AFP

Heard, 34, obtained a restraining order against her husband in May 2016, claiming she was a victim of domestic violence. She attended court with an injured face.

Soon afterwards Mr Musk sent her a plant with a card reading “I had a wonderful weekend. E”, the court was told.

About a month later Mr Musk arrived at the concierge desk of the Eastern Columbia Lofts building at 9am looking “like he had just woken up with messy hair” having taken a lift down from Heard’s penthouse, Ms Esparza said. Heard then arrived at the desk saying she had dropped her keys down the rubbish chute.

Marks on Heard’s face after Musk visit

“I could see a number of marks on Ms Heard’s body,” Ms Esparza said. “She had three small round bruises on the left hand side of her neck and two Band-Aids on her arm. Ms Heard also had a faint mark on her left cheek, below her eye. That mark was approximately half an inch in length.”

Ms Esparza replied “I don’t know” when asked if Mr Musk had injured Heard. “She came downstairs and she did have some marks that were visible,” she said. “I don’t know where they came from.”

Musk denies love triangle

Mr Esparza said she was “disturbed” to learn that Heard had obtained a restraining order against Depp because of his violence as she had not seen any injuries on her face before the morning with Mr Musk. She said she reviewed the building’s security camera footage for the days before the court hearing and saw no marks on Heard’s face. She said Heard was normally “beautiful with flawless skin”.

Mr Musk issued a statement last month insisting that he was never involved in a love triangle with Heard and Cara Delevingne, the British model. He said that he was only friends with Delevingne, 27, and went out with Heard after she had left Depp.

US actress Amber Heard waves as she leaves on the fifth day of the libel trial. Picture: Tolga Akmen/AFP

The Sun relies on 14 alleged incidents of domestic violence, all of which are denied by Depp.

Depp told the court that he could not have grabbed his wife’s hair while repeatedly punching her during an alleged incident at their penthouse in March 2015 because one of his hands was in a cast. This was two weeks after Depp’s finger had been severed during an alleged drink and drug-fuelled rage while filming the fifth instalment of Pirates of the Caribbean in Australia. He also told the court that he did not intend to “headbutt” Heard during an argument at their Los Angeles penthouse the night before she was due to film her appearance on The Late Late Show with James Corden in December 2015. Depp said he had not thrown a mobile telephone at Heard, hitting her in the eye, while he was “drunk and high” at their apartment in May 2016.

He told the court: “It seemed like everything she would accuse me of was something that she had done to me, so I started to see this kind of pattern, a mirroring.”

Heard has accused Depp of kicking and violently attacking her during a drug-fuelled rage on a flight three months earlier after claiming she was a “slut” who was having an affair with James Franco, her co-star in The Adderall Diaries. Depp said he had been working 17-hour days filming Black Mass and had already agreed to go to detox on his private island in the Bahamas.

Stephen Deuters, Depp’s British personal assistant, sent Heard a message after the flight which read: “He was appalled. When I told him he kicked you, he cried. It was disgusting. And he knows it … It’s hideous. But that is one side of the man that you fell in love with. And one side of the man that fell in love with you.”

Depp sent Mr Deuters a message referring to there being “hookers and animals” in his hotel room, adding that he would have “to kill a few of the animals for sustenance”. Mr Deuters replied: “Watch out for Mike Tyson.” Asked what his message meant, he told the court: “It certainly could have been with regard to the relationship he was involved in at the time.”

Depp finished giving evidence on Monday after five days in the witness box. The hearing continues.

The Times