LONDON • Hollywood star Johnny Depp wrote on a wall with blood from his severed fingertip during a violent confrontation with his ex-wife Amber Heard, London's High Court heard on Thursday at his libel case against a British tabloid.

Depp, 57, told the court he suffered a nervous breakdown during a row with actress Heard, but denied he had violently attacked her and accused her of cutting his finger by throwing a bottle at him.

The revelations came on the third day of Depp's appearance in the witness stand as he sues the publisher of Britain's The Sun tabloid, News Group Newspapers, over an article in which it labelled him a "wife beater".

Depp has rejected all accusations that he was violent towards his former wife, saying that they were part of a hoax created by Heard, 34, as an insurance policy.

The court heard that Depp was in Australia in March 2015 to film Pirates Of The Caribbean a month after the couple married. Heard had flown to join him from London, where she had been making a movie with co-star Billy Bob Thornton.

The Sun's lawyer Sasha Wass said Heard had suffered a three-day ordeal at Depp's hands in the rented house where the actor was staying, after she became angry at him because he had been drinking to excess and taking drugs.

Consumed with jealousy towards Heard and Thornton, Depp attacked her, constantly swigging from a bottle, Ms Wass said. He slapped Heard's face and smashed her head against a fridge, and she barricaded herself in her bedroom to escape him, the court was told.

Ms Wass said Depp then spat in Heard's face, grabbed her by the throat and told her it would be easy to crush her neck.

"Fabricated and vicious," Depp said. "I vehemently deny it and go as far as to say it was pedestrian fiction."

He agreed the couple had a row on the final day as he wanted Heard to sign a post-nuptial agreement, but said he had not been drinking until that point. He said she had thrown two vodka bottles at him, the second of which "severed my finger and crushed my bones".

"That is when I began what I feel was perhaps some species of a nervous breakdown," he told the court.

He said he began to write messages on the wall in blood with his severed finger and then using paint. One message on a mirror said: "Starring Billy Bob, Easy Amber."

Ms Wass said the house was a scene of "carnage" with paint everywhere, and windows and a television set smashed. It caused US$100,000 (S$139,000) to US$150,000 worth of damage, according to Depp's assistant, the lawyer said.

By December 2015, Depp was regularly using violence against Heard, according to Ms Wass.

Depp replied the problem was that he ran away from fights.

Shown pictures of Heard with two black eyes, Depp said he had tried to grab her eyes while defending himself and he could have headbutted her accidentally.

Depp had earlier denied attacking Heard while trying to ease himself off prescription drugs on his private island in the Bahamas in August 2014, which he described as the "lowest point of my life".

He accused Heard of withholding medication that would ease the process, calling it "one of the cruellest things that she has ever done".

Ms Wass said Heard had been following instructions from Depp's medical team, which led the actor to push and hit her.

"I did not push Ms Heard or attack her in any way," Depp said. "I was not in a condition to do so, in any case."

REUTERS