Makeup artist describes covering up Amber Heard's bruised face and busted lip after alleged fight with Johnny Depp

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Makeup artist describes covering up Amber Heard's bruised face and busted lip after alleged fight with Johnny Depp
Amber Heard is seen during an appearance on "The Late Late Show" with James Corden.CBS via Fairfax County Circuit Court
  • Amber Heard's former makeup artist, Melanie Inglessis, testified in her defamation trial on Wednesday.
  • Inglessis said she covered up bruises and a split lip that Heard said Johnny Depp caused.
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Amber Heard's former makeup artist testified on Wednesday that she helped the actress cover up a bruised face and a split lip after an alleged fight with Johnny Depp in December 2015.

Depp has taken Heard to trial for defamation, claiming she ruined his reputation and career by insinuating she had been the victim of domestic violence in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed. Heard is fighting the lawsuit, and spent several days on the stand describing multiple incidents where she said Depp was physically and sexually abusive. Depp has denied the accusations.

On Wednesday, Heard's former makeup artist, Melanie Inglessis, testified about helping Heard hide a split lip and blue bruises, which Heard said she sustained in a fight with Depp on December 15, 2015.

"We covered the discoloration, the bruises, with a slightly heavier concealer," Inglessis said. "One that has a little more peach undertone, which I normally don't use on Amber, but peach cancels blue. So I did that under the eyes."

Makeup artist describes covering up Amber Heard's bruised face and busted lip after alleged fight with Johnny Depp
Makeup artist Melanie Inglessis, left, testifies via video deposition in the Depp v. Heard defamation trial.KEVIN LAMARQUE/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Earlier in the trial, Heard testified about Depp headbutting her, hitting her, and dragging her by the hair during the fight.

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Heard called Inglessis, who was also her friend at the time, over to the apartment that night, after the fight, the makeup artist testified. Inglessis testified that she saw a message written out on the kitchen counter reading: "Why be a fraud? All is such bullshit..."

While she said she didn't see any injuries to Heard that night, Heard had some the following day when Inglessis returned to the apartment to do Heard's makeup for an appearance on "The Late Late Show" with James Corden.

"Although Amber always has a red lip — it was one of her signature looks — I remember clearly thinking that we have no other option that night," Inglessis testified. "Because of the red blood, we used red to make sure we could cover up the bleeding on the lip."

When she arrived at the apartment the next day, Inglessis said Heard "had injuries" on her face, including some "discoloration" under both of her eyes and a split lip. She said there was "a little more of a gash" under her right eye, with "blue and yellow discoloration."

Inglessis said she was successfully able to cover up all the injuries using makeup, something she had learned to do throughout her career as a professional makeup artist.

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"I used a different kind of concealer that I wouldn't normally use on Amber," she said. "I used a concealer that had a peach undertone. Peach undertone concealers are more effective to cover any darkness of blue undertone."

Inglessis specified that she had never personally witnessed Depp physically assault Heard, though she occasionally applied arnica gel to help reduce swelling.

In her own testimony earlier in the trial, Heard said she used her makeup kit strategically to hide bruises so that people wouldn't notice bruises in photos taken by the paparazzi.

"I am typically photographed in LA when I leave the house, paparazzi types of photographs," Heard said. "No woman wants to walk around with a bruise on her face."

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