Johnny Depp's nurse has revealed that she once searched for the tip of the actor's severed finger after he lost it during a brutal fight with his now ex-wife Amber Heard.
The celebrity exes are currently embroiled in a $50 million defamation trial in which jurors will decide whether Heard defamed Depp when she claimed to be a domestic abuse survivor in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed.
On Monday, the court in Fairfax, Virginia, heard a pre-recorded testimony from the Pirates of the Caribbean star's former private nurse, Debbie Lloyd. Lloyd accompanied the couple on a 2015 trip to Australia which has been touted by both actors' lawyers as an occasion when their volatile marriage turned extremely violent.
The nurse - who was part of a team helping treat Depp's opioid addiction - recalled arriving at the house where the couple were staying. It was there that she said she found a smashed-up TV and writing scrawled on the walls. She added that Depp's hands were covered in paint and grime.
"I remember looking for his finger in the downstairs area," Lloyd told the court per The New York Post, adding: "The house was a mess."
She went on to describe how the house manager eventually found Depp's severed fingertip and brought it to the hospital.
When asked how Depp had injured his finger, Lloyd said she was not certain. According to Law & Crime, the nurse said: "I heard different stories from people. I had heard that Amber threw a bottle of vodka at him. I had heard that he slammed it with a phone."
The actress claims that Depp sliced his own finger off at the end of a three-day drug-fuelled bender - an allegation supported by the testimony of Depp's former private doctor David Kipper.
According to Kipper, Depp told doctors at the emergency room that he cut his own finger with a knife. The doctor first heard of the injury - which eventually required surgery - through a text message from the actor which allegedly read: "I cut the top of my middle finger off… What should I do!?? Except, of course, go to a hospital."
Over a week after his trip to the emergency room, Depp sent the doctor another text reading: "Thank you for everything. I have chopped off my left middle finger as a reminder that I should never cut my finger off again!! I love you, brother. Johnny."
Depp's claim that Heard cut his finger off is a central tenet of his suit, which alleges it was she and not him who was the real abuser in their marriage.
The Edward Scissorhands star has previously stated that the injury proved near-fatal after he developed an MRSA infection. In a court filing, he wrote: "I had to have three surgeries to reconstruct my finger and contracted MRSA three times", adding: "I feared that I would lose my finger, my arm, and my life."
According to Deadline, the actor is set to take the witness stand later today, with cross-examination scheduled for Wednesday this week.
