Hollywood legend Johnny Depp on Friday accused Britain’s The Sun tabloid of turning him from "Cinderella into Quasimodo" by claiming he beat his ex-wife Amber Heard.
The first week of Depp’s star-studded libel trial against the paper’s publisher and executive editor drew to a close with the 57-year-old denying hurling a champagne bottle and a phone at his former wife.
Depp claims charges compiled by Heard over a tumultuous two-year marriage that ended in 2017 were a "hoax" designed to advance her career at his expense. The "Pirates of the Caribbean" actor said on Thursday he was so often high or strung out on drugs that he was "in no condition" to hurt the 34-year-old model and film star.
The High Court trial revolves around a 2018 headline in The Sun asking how JK Rowling could be happy casting "wife-beater" Depp in a "Fantastic Beasts" film. Depp said the headline altered his Hollywood image and endangered his career.
"I went from Cinderella into Quasimodo in 0.6 seconds and I was without a voice," he told the court. "That’s where I was in my life at that point." Cinderella is a beautiful fairy tale princess and Quasimodo the disfigured protagonist of Victor Hugo’s novel "The Hunchback of Notre Dame".
Depp looked more confident and engaged on the fourth day of the three-week trial than he appeared at its start. He listened alertly in an olive suit and verbally clashed with publisher News Group Newspapers’ (NGN) lawyer Sasha Wass in an attempt to refute her various charges.