Amber Heard previously testified about a rumor she’d heard of Johnny Depp allegedly pushing ex-girlfriend Kate Moss down a set of stairs
Kate Moss testified that Johnny Depp “never pushed” her down “any stairs” when they were dating in the 1990s.
On Wednesday morning, the British model, 48, appeared via live video link in front of the Fairfax, Virginia, courtroom to address a reference Depp’s ex-wife Amber Heard, 36, made in previous testimony about Moss and “stairs.”
Moss, who said that she and Depp dated from 1994 to 1998, testified that the alleged incident occurred while they were vacationing at a resort in Jamaica, and that he did not push her when she fell.
“We were leaving the room and Johnny left the room before I did. There had been a rainstorm. As I left the room, I slid down the stairs and I hurt my back,” she said under oath. “I screamed because I didn’t know what happened to me and I was in pain. He came running back to help me and carried me to my room and got me medical attention.”
“He never pushed me, kicked me or threw me down any stairs,” added Moss.
Moss was not cross-examined by Heard’s team.
Kate Moss to testify in Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard trial
Heard, earlier this month, mentioned Moss’ name during her time on the stand while discussing an alleged altercation that happened on a staircase back in March 2015 between Depp and Heard’s sister Whitney Henriquez. The Aquaman actress said Henriquez became “in the line of fire … trying to get Johnny to stop,” which reminded her of a rumored incident between Moss and Depp involving a stair altercation. She said she then intervened to defend her younger sister.
“[Whitney’s] back was to the staircase, and Johnny swings at her,” Heard 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.”
“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,” Heard added. “He didn’t push my sister down the stairs.” (Henriquez, 34, testified later that Depp hit her and then “repeatedly” struck Heard, who allegedly defended Henriquez in the staircase incident.)
Heard previously brought up the Moss staircase allegation during her testimony at Depp’s U.K. defamation trial in 2020, The New York Post reported. (In November 2020, Depp lost that U.K. libel lawsuit case against British tabloid The Sun for calling him a “wife-beater.” The court upheld the outlet’s claims as being “substantially true” and Heard testified to back up the claims. In March 2021, Depp’s attempt to overturn the decision was overruled.)
“I remembered information I had heard [that] he pushed a former girlfriend — I believe it was Kate Moss — down the stairs,” Heard previously testified in that overseas case while describing the same fight involving her sister and Depp. “I had heard this rumor from two people and it was fresh in my mind.”
Moss and Depp broke up in 1997 after four years of dating and a rumored engagement, and they later appeared together briefly at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1998. (When she testified, she said they were romantic from 1994 to 1998.)
At 5:30 a.m. on Sept. 13, 1994, Depp was arrested and charged with criminal mischief at New York’s Mark Hotel for allegedly trashing his hotel room. Police said they found Depp “in a state of possible intoxication” and Moss uninjured. A criminal-court judge dismissed the charge against Depp on the condition that he stay out of trouble for six months. Depp paid the Mark close to $10,000, including more than $2,000 for damages, plus the bill for the remainder of his reservation.
Moss said back in a 2012 Vanity Fair interview that she cried for “years” after their relationship ended: “There’s nobody that’s ever really been able to take care of me. Johnny did for a bit. I believed what he said. Like if I said, ‘What do I do?’, he’d tell me. And that’s what I missed when I left. I really lost that gauge of somebody I could trust.”
Depp and Heard married in 2015 and split in May 2016, when Heard filed for divorce then sought a domestic violence restraining order against him. Depp denied her abuse claims, and the former couple settled their divorce out of court in August 2016.
Though Depp has said under oath that he has never struck Heard or any woman in his life, the Aquaman actress testified of multiple instances when he allegedly slapped, choked, kicked, hit, head-butted, sexually assaulted or threw objects at her. She also admitted to hitting him as well in retaliation, and both have said they were verbally “nasty” to each other.
About her allegations being deemed “fake” and a “hoax,” Heard testified about her ex-husband, “All I have is my name — and that’s exactly what he promised to take from me.” Meanwhile, he has testified that his “goal is the truth” as he seeks to clear his name in the trial, adding that because of Heard’s allegations, he lost “nothing short of everything.”
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