New photographs of Amber Heard’s bruised and bloodied face surfaced this week as the actress claims that husband Johnny Depp repeatedly verbally and physically assaulted her during the course of their 15-month marriage, an accusation the Pirates of the Caribbean star vehemently denies.
In the new photos, released to People magazine, the 30-year-old Rum Diary actress can be seen with bruising around her face and a bloodied lip, reportedly taken after an alleged violent incident in December of last year.
Earlier this month, Heard took to a California court to claim that Depp, 52, repeatedly physically assaulted her during their year-long marriage, with the latest incident coming when Depp allegedly threw a cellphone at the actress’s head during a violent altercation last Saturday night. The actress sought and was granted a temporary restraining order.
Depp has vehemently denied striking his wife, and Los Angeles Police Department officers who arrived at the couple’s residence that night say they saw no evidence of injuries to Heard.
The actress filed for divorce from Depp earlier this month.
Both sides have leveraged the media to make wild accusations about each other as the divorce case has heated up over the past week.
In an interview with the New York Post on Tuesday, a friend of Heard’s claims Depp would frequently assault his wife in drunken fits of rage, and even once allegedly tried to smother her with a pillow.
“I got to her apartment to find her with a cut and bruised lip, a swollen eye and a chunk of hair missing from the top of her head,” the unnamed friend told the paper’s gossip section Page Six of a an incident that allegedly occurred in December of last year. “This incident really stuck with me because she confided in me that day that she feared for her life after an intoxicated Johnny tried to suffocate her with a pillow.”
“I have personally witnessed the aftermath of Johnny Depp’s violent and abusive behavior towards her on many occasions,” the friend added.
Heard referenced the alleged December incident in her initial court filing last week, writing of “one severe incident in December 2015 when I truly feared for my life.”
But Depp and his legal team have strenuously denied that the actor ever physically assaulted Heard. In a column for the Wrap this week, Depp pal Doug Stanhope wrote that the actress is attempting to “blackmail” the Pirates star to secure a large financial settlement.
Depp’s former romantic partners, Vanessa Paradis and Lori Anne Allison, have also released separate statements saying the actor never physically abused them during the course of their relationships. Allison told TMZ that Depp never so much as raised his voice against her during the course of their three-year-long marriage.
Meanwhile, the police officers that arrived at the scene of Saturday night’s alleged incident have said they saw no evidence of injuries consistent with the abuse with which Heard has accused Depp. Heard reportedly declined to file a police report at the time, but her attorney has since claimed that her “silence has been used against her” by Depp and that she has now been forced to defend against “false and malicious allegations.”
“Johnny’s team has forced Amber to give a statement to the LAPD to set the record straight as to the true facts, as she cannot continue to leave herself open to the vicious false and malicious allegations that have infected the media,” Heard’s attorney Samantha Spector said in a statement. “Amber has suffered through years of physical and psychological abuse at the hands of Johnny. In domestic violence cases, it is not unusual for the perpetrator’s playbook to include miscasting the victim as the villain.”
Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum
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