Johnny Depp Returning to Stand in Trial, Ellen Barkin and Amber Heard’s Sister to Testify as Well
Ellen Barkin and Amber Heard’s sister Whitney Henriquez willtestify on behalf of Heard when her trial with Johnny Depp resumes next week.
Actress Ellen Barkin and Amber Heard’s sister Whitney Henriquez will testify on behalf of Heard when the latter’s defamation trial with her ex-husband Johnny Depp resumes next week.
PEOPLE confirms that Barkin, 68, will be called to the stand as a witness for Heard via video, while Henriquez will take the stand in person. Depp, 58, will also take the stand once again to be questioned by Heard’s legal team.
Henriquez and Barkin both previously testified on behalf of Heard in Depp’s highly publicized U.K. libel lawsuit case against British tabloid The Sun.
Reps for Barkin did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
Depp is suing Heard for defamation, arguing that her 2018 op-ed for The Washington Post about surviving domestic violence tarnished his reputation and ruined his career opportunities, even though she didn’t mention him by name in the article. He testified that after Heard’s allegations against him, he lost “nothing short of everything.”
He and Heard married in 2015 and split in May 2016, when Heard sought a domestic violence restraining order against him, accusing him of abusing her. Depp denied the claims, and the former couple settled their divorce out of court in August 2016.
Heard has mentioned Henriquez during her testimony already, alleging on May 5 that her sister was once near a staircase “in the line of fire … trying to get Johnny to stop” during a fight, which Heard said reminded her of a rumored incident between Depp and his ex Kate Moss.
“[Whitney’s] back was to the staircase, and Johnny swings at her,” the Aquaman 2 actress testified. “I don’t hesitate, I don’t wait — I just, in my head, instantly think of Kate Moss and stairs.”
“And I swung at him,” Heard continued of the alleged March 2015 incident between herself, Henriquez and Depp. “In all of my relationship to date with Johnny, I hadn’t landed a blow. And I, for the first time, hit him — like, actually hit him. Square in the face.”
A rep for Moss, 48, has not responded to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
Barkin, who dated Depp in the late ’90s while they filmed Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, testified during his libel trial that he had once thrown a wine bottle across a hotel room, according to Reuters.
The Pirates of the Caribbean star called the claim “untrue,” Reuters reported, claiming Barkin held a grudge against him and adding, “I do not have an anger-management problem.”
Proceedings for the trial, which kicked of April 11, went on hiatus this past week and will resume Monday at 9 a.m. ET. The jury involved in the Fairfax County, Virginia, case has been instructed by Judge Penney Azcarate to not research anything pertaining to the trial online while on break.
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