- Johnny Depp’s house manager described finding the actor’s severed finger in a bloody paper towel.
- The fate of Depp’s right middle finger is a subject of controversy in his trial of ex-wife Amber Heard.
- Ben King said he filled it with ice and sent it to the hospital to put it back on.
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Johnny Depp’s house manager testified in the actor’s defamation trial against his ex-wife Amber Heard on Monday, saying he found his finger wrapped in a bloody paper towel on the floor of his home in Australia.
“There was a crumpled piece of kitchen paper with a lot of blood on it,” said manager Ben King, using a British term for paper towels. “So I figured that would probably be a pretty good place to look.”
The fateful night that part of Depp’s right middle finger was chopped off has become a central point in the process. It happened on March 7, 2015, when Depp and Heard were living in a house on an island in Australia while filming the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie.
The two had gotten into an argument – and it turned violent.
Exactly how part of the finger was severed from the rest of the hand is a matter of debate.
In court documents, Heard claimed Depp cut it off himself by “banging a hard plastic phone against the wall.” King testified Monday that he did not see any damaged phones the night he found the finger.
According to Depp, Heard threw a glass vodka bottle at him, which broke on his hand, conducting the breakup.
“I felt like something was dripping from my hand”
Depp sued Heard in March 2019, alleging that she defamed him by describing herself as a victim of domestic violence in a Washington Post op-ed. The truth, according to Depp, is that Heard frequently physically and verbally abused him throughout their relationship up until their divorce in 2016.
Heard has denied and sued the claims, alleging that Depp often abused her while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. She also claimed that the damage to Depp’s finger came at the end of a three-day bend in which he punched her multiple times.
Early in the trial, David Kipper, a doctor, and Debbie Lloyd, a nurse, both testified about the night of the missing finger. Depp hired the two to treat him for an opioid addiction he developed after being prescribed pain medication to treat a leg injury.
After his finger was cut off, Depp texted Kipper.
“I cut off the tip of my middle finger. What should I do? Except for going to a hospital, of course,” he wrote. “I’m so embarrassed getting involved with her.”
Actor Johnny Depp testifies in the courtroom during the defamation trial of ex-wife Amber Heard at the Fairfax County Circuit Courthouse in Fairfax, Virginia, on April 25, 2022. Steve Helber/Pool via REUTERS
Depp later testified at trial that the lines — as well as the stories Depp told other doctors about cutting his finger on an accordion door — were said to avoid getting Heard in trouble. Other text messages that suggested he clipped it himself were jokes or exaggerations, he said. He also testified that he would never cut off his finger because he loves playing the guitar too much.
“Honestly I didn’t feel the pain at first, what I did feel was heat and I felt like something was dripping from my hand,” Depp testified at the beginning of the trial, describing the experience. “Then I looked down and found that the tip of my finger had been severed and I was looking straight at my protruding bones and the fleshy part of the inside of your finger.”
A bloody paper towel
King, who testified Monday after Depp ended his own four-day stint at the stand, said he worked for Depp in 2015 and 2016. He said that he – like other members of Depp’s entourage – was staying at other houses nearby during the Australia trip. He arrived at the scene after Kipper had already sent Depp to the hospital.
“I spoke to David Kipper, who was in the kitchen area and appeared to be digging through a trash can,” King testified. “He said Mr Depp sustained an injury to his finger, one of his fingers, and he was looking for the severed fingertip.”
King offered his help in finding the finger and went downstairs to look for it. He observed the damage to the house – a piece of the marble staircase, a smashed potted plant, a collapsed ping-pong table and lots of broken glass on the floor.
In the “bar area” of the house, he said, he found a bloody paper towel. Inside was the tip of the middle finger of Depp’s right hand.
“It was in that crumpled piece of paper on the tile floor at the end of the bar, the foot of the bar, by one of the bar stools,” King testified.
Ben King, a former house manager to actor Johnny Depp, testifies during Johnny Depp’s defamation trial of ex-wife Amber Heard at the Fairfax County Circuit Courthouse in Fairfax, Virginia, on April 25, 2022. Steve Helber/Pool via REUTERS
Around the bar, King saw strewn cans and art supplies and more debris, including another piece from the marble bar, broken mirrors everywhere, a broken TV, and a perfect, cream-colored couch ruined by streaks of blood.
“On the ground, around, there were puddles that smelled like alcohol to me,” King said. “There appeared to be several drinking glasses and a couple of bottles, one of which was a Stolichnaya vodka bottle.”
King also said he found “other bodily fluids” in the mess, but didn’t elaborate.
King said he screamed, “I found it!” After I found the finger, he went upstairs with the finger and put it in a plastic bag with ice. He turned the container over to Kipper and one of Depp’s bodyguards, who drove it to the hospital to see if it could be reattached, he said.
Heard, King said, was “hysterical” that night. He volunteered to fly her back to her home in Los Angeles and the two left Australia the next day, he said.
King then flew back to the home in Australia, where he managed the cleanup and worked with contractors to “put the home back to how it was originally,” he said.
Depp, meanwhile, saw a specialist in Australia who helped put his finger back together. Because his hand was bandaged, Disney visual effects artists used computer-generated imagery to make it appear as if he had a “normal finger” in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, released in 2017. he testified.
Eventually, both Depp and Heard returned to the house while Depp continued filming the film. The couple is “pleasant, almost honeymoon-like,” King said.
And then, he said, they started fighting again.