Amber Heard can wait, music cannot: Actor Johnny Depp makes surprise appearance at MTV awards

Leaving behind the bitter legal battle with his former wife Amber Heard. Actor Johnny Depp appeared as a floating astronaut hovering above the crowd at MTV’s Video Music Awards on Sunday.

Depp’s face was digitally imposed inside the helmet of a spaceman, the inspiration for the VMAs Moon Person statue, and he delivered brief jokes throughout the live ceremony. “I needed the work,” the Pirates of the Caribbean star joked at the start of the show.

Later in the ceremony, Depp said he was available for “birthdays, bar mitzvahs, bat mitzvahs, weddings, wakes, any old thing you need.”

In June, Depp won a near-total victory in his legal battle with Heard, who had accused him of physical abuse. Depp denied hitting her or any other woman.

Two years earlier, Depp lost a libel suit in Britain against the Sun tabloid, which called him a “wife beater.” A London High Court judge ruled that Depp had repeatedly assaulted Heard. He was dropped from the Harry Potter spinoff franchise Fantastic Beasts and largely shunned by Hollywood.

Since his US court victory, Depp has performed music on tour with Jeff Beck and is set to direct Modigliani, a biographical drama about Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani. The actor also is set to play King Louis XV in the French film Jeanne du Barry.