Amber Heard arrives at court to give three days of evidence against Johnny Depp

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Amber Heard feared she would perish in an attack by Johnny Depp where he allegedly compressed her neck and told her: ‘I’m going to f**king kill you and I’ll f**k your corpse’.

Ms Heard’s 39-page witness statement published today claims that Mr Depp ‘threatened to kill me many times’ and he would blame all his actions on a self-created third person he dubbed ‘the monster’ during three years of marriage where she felt ‘powerless’.

She claims that the megastar told her that the only way to escape their marriage was to die, and allegedly punched, headbutted, kicked and strangled her and once hurled a mobile phone in her face ‘as hard as he could’ after he ‘wound up his arm back like he was a baseball pitcher’.

Amber also alleges that Mr Depp repeatedly threatened to have her raped by other men and told her after one row on a flight: ‘When we land, I can call some black brothers who can f**k you if you’re so desperate for it’. Depp also allegedly told her: ‘I will cut up your face so no one will want you ever again’ and about how he knew people who could ‘break a leg, real cheap’. 

Depp also accused her of affairs in ‘movie after move’ including Eddie Redmayne, James Franco, Jim Sturgess, Kevin Costner, Liam Hemsworth, Billy-Bob Thornton, Channing Tatum – even women co-stars like Kelli Garner. She alleged that he also said she had an affair with Leonardo DiCaprio after an audition, who he called ‘pumpkin-head’. 

Her extraordinary allegations emerged as she began three days of evidence about allegations her megastar ex-husband Johnny Depp beat her and abused her often while on drink and drug binges including one occasion in Australia where she claims she was held hostage for three days.

Wearing a cream blouse and dark pencil skirt, with her long hair braided to one side of her head, Miss Heard spoke about her ex-husband’s alleged physical and verbal abuse as he sat feet away, claiming her weight dropped and she felt like a hostage and ‘scared all the time’.

In her bombshell witness statement the actress claims:

• Mr Depp allegedly told her ‘death was the only way out of the relationship’ before their divorce in 2016;
• She also claims Mr Depp kneeled on her back and hit the back of her head in a row in Tokyo over a pre-nuptial agreement; 
• If Miss Heard attempted to seduce him while wearing something ‘sexy’ – her megastar husband would call her ‘whore’, ‘slut’, ‘fame-hungry’, ‘gold-digger’ and ‘an attention whore’. Later he would say ‘well I’m going to have to watch you get raped’ and ‘I hope you get railed by a bunch of f**king fellas.’ 
• Depp took their dog Boo and held her out of the window of the moving car while ‘howling like a dog’;
• On a flight from Boston to LA in 2014 she claims Depp ‘kicked me hard in the back’ and kept verbally abusing me, saying things like ‘when we land, I can call some black brothers who can f**k you if you’re so desperate for it’.
• In March 2015 she claims their trip to Australia was like being held hostage for three days where she claims she was beaten, strangled and spat at as Depp allegedly told her ‘you f**king make me do this’;
• On her 30th birthday in April 2016 she claims Mr Depp repeatedly pushed her over, smashed pictures and photographs around the apartment and left a note saying: ‘Happy F**king Birthday’. 
• Depp alleged she had affairs with co-stars at ‘movie after movie’ and also claimed she cheated with Leonardo DiCaprio after an audition, calling him ‘pumpkin head’  

Ms Heard, 34, is also expected to face accusations she had an affair with Tesla billionaire Elon Musk and claims from Mr Depp’s friends that she fabricated domestic abuse to ‘blackmail’ her ex-husband when they divorced in 2016.

Amber, who was hugged by her lawyer Jennifer Robinson outside court, has shared pictures of her apparently bruised face after Mr Depp allegedly threw a phone in her face – but the actor’s witnesses have claimed there were no signs of injury when they saw her the following day. 

Mr Depp looked relaxed as he arrived at court where he is suing News Group Newspapers, the parent company of The Sun, for libel over a 2018 article which labelled him a ‘wife-beater.’   

NGN is defending the article as true, and says Depp was ‘controlling and verbally and physically abusive towards Heard, particularly when he was under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs’.  

During Depp’s 20 hours of evidence at the Royal Courts of Justice, the actor claimed Heard severed the tip of his finger when she threw a large vodka bottle at him during one explosive row, and that either she or one of her friends had defecated in their shared bed as a prank. 

Miss Heard affirmed her oath before being taken to her witness statements in the trial bundle by Sasha Was QC, for NGN. And then Eleanor Laws QC, representing Johnny Depp, beganm cross examining Amber Heard.

She suggested to the actress that she had ‘ultimate control in the relationship’, to which Ms Heard said: ‘No, absolutely not’, adding: ‘No, I had very little decision-making power in that relationship.’

Ms Laws then asked about the five penthouses in the Eastern Columbia Building in Los Angeles which Mr Depp owned, and said to Ms Heard that she ‘moved some friends and your sister in’.

Ms Heard replied: ‘Not exactly.’

She added that her sister, Whitney Henriquez, did move into one of the penthouses and that her friend Raquel Pennington did so ‘at his invitation’.

Ms Laws continued: ‘And it was you who wanted them there.’

Ms Heard replied: ‘Yes, I loved that they were there.’

Ms Laws asked: ‘And none of them paid any rent?’

Ms Heard said: ‘No, Johnny wouldn’t let them.’

Eleanor Laws then asked Amber Heard about the couple’s marriage in February 2015, saying: ‘At that stage, according to you, you had been subject to repeated and regular physical violence, is that right?’

Ms Heard replied: ‘Yes, that’s right.’

Ms Laws then asked Ms Heard about discussions with lawyers in January 2015 about a pre-nuptial agreement between herself and Johnny Depp, and suggested there was an argument about it.

Ms Heard told the court: ‘There was an argument in a hotel room in Tokyo that resulted in Johnny kneeling on my back and hitting me on the back of the head.

‘He mentioned… it was more about Christi his sister, who handled most of his affairs.

‘He said it was Christi, that he didn’t want that, that he trusted me and, as he said to me time and time again, the only way out of this was death.

‘He said this to me, to which I responded that of course I would sign whatever I needed to sign.

‘But then Johnny was also accusing me of having an affair with a co-star and that is what led to the actual argument.’

She said Mr Depp hit her in the hotel room and that ‘everything else proceeded in the closet’.

Johnny Depp enjoyed an evening in the pub with a mystery female friend ahead of another week in the High Court

The Pirates of the Caribbean star, 57, made a pit stop at The Alfred Tennyson on Sunday, an upmarket gastro-pub in London‘s Belgravia neighbourhood. Sporting a large Rastafarian-style hat and puffing on a hand-rolled cigarette, Depp was followed out of the venue by a smartly-dressed female companion.    

Depp’s Sunday roast at the pub marks a more subdued preparation for the week ahead after it emerged he’d spent the days before the High Court showdown by playing guitar with rock legend Jeff Beck, 76.

The pair even released a cover version of John Lennon’s aptly titled ‘Isolation’ as a result of their ‘jamming’ sessions at Beck’s home in Sussex, the Sunday Mirror reported.

Heard is due to be called as the first defence witness on Monday and is expected to give evidence over three days.

Mr Justice Nicol is also expected to hear an application by NGN’s lawyers to call expert evidence about whether images purporting to show injuries to Heard have been ‘manipulated or edited’ in some way. 

Last Monday, on the final day of his evidence, Depp said: ‘It seemed like everything [Heard] would accuse me of was something she had done to me.’ 

On Thursday, the court heard written statements from two of his former partners, Winona Ryder and Vanessa Paradis, who said he was never violent to them.   

Ms Paradis, 47, with whom the actor has two children, said: ‘I have known Johnny for more than 25 years. We’ve been partners for 14 years and we raised our two children together.

‘Through all these years I’ve known Johnny to be a kind, attentive, generous and non-violent person and father.’ 

Ms Paradis’ statement continued: ‘I am aware of the allegations which Amber Heard has publicly accused Johnny of for more than four years now.

‘This is nothing like the true Johnny I have known, and, from my personal experience of many years, I can say he was never violent or abusive to me.’ 

Ms Ryder, 48, who was engaged to Mr Depp in the 1990s, said in her statement: ‘I knew Johnny very well years ago. We were together as a couple for four years, and I counted him as my best friend, and as close to me as family.

‘I count our relationship as one of the more significant relationships of my life.

‘I understand that it is very important that I speak from my own experience, as I obviously was not there during his marriage to Amber, but, from my experience, which was so wildly different, I was absolutely shocked, confused and upset when I heard the accusations against him.’

On Friday, the ninth day of the trial, the court heard from a long-standing friend of Depp that Heard had made her allegations to ‘extort and blackmail him.’ 

Isaac Baruch, an artist who has known the Hollywood star for 40 years, said Mr Depp told him that Heard ‘likes to argue and likes to hit’ and said: ‘I’m not gonna hit her, I love her.’

Giving evidence by video-link from the US, Mr Baruch said he saw Ms Heard’s face and did not see ‘a single mark’ on May 22 2016, the day after Depp allegedly threw his ex-wife’s mobile phone at her and hit her in the face.

Mr Baruch – who lived rent-free in one of five penthouses in the Eastern Columbia Building in Los Angeles owned by Mr Depp – described the Hollywood star as an ‘ubermensch’ and ‘an ultimate good guy’.

He also told the court that Depp called Heard a ‘c***’ in a text to him ‘because she filed for a fraudulent domestic violence claim to push her hand and extort and blackmail him’. 

In his evidence, Travis McGivern – a member of Mr Depp’s security team – said the Aquaman actress spat at, punched and threw a can of Red Bull at the actor during a heated row in March 2015.

The court also heard from actress and #MeToo activist Katherine Kendall, who claims she was ‘completely misquoted and misused by The Sun’, and Alejandro Romero, a concierge at the Eastern Columbia Building, who claims Elon Musk regularly visited Heard late at night.

Johnny Depp’s US attorney accused of ‘sinister and macabre’ tweet after witness called him  ‘the biggest a**hole under the sun’

Johnny’s Depp’s US lawyer was today accused of sending a ‘sinister and macabre’ message aimed at Amber Heard’s interior designer.

Adam Waldman’s tweet read: ‘In memoriam, Elon Musk’s decorator Laura Divenere’ after she had given evidence on Friday and called him the ‘biggest a**hole under the sun’. 

Adam Wolanski QC, for News Group Newspapers, said Mr Waldman has been observing proceedings from one of the few available seats in court, adding: ‘We would ask that he refrains from posting further macabre, threatening and sinister messages about witnesses whose evidence he does not like.’

Mr Justice Nicol said the phrase ‘in memoriam’ – a phrase referring to remembering a dead – was unwelcome. Mr Depp’s barrister David Sherborne told the court it was a phrase Mr Waldman has used to refer to evidence which he believes to be in support of a lie.

Mr Waldman was mentioned in proceedings on Friday when Amber Heard secretly recorded her interior designer raging against him for allegedly pressuring her to make a critical statement about the actress.

Laura Divenere, who furnished the ex-couple’s Los Angeles penthouse, said in her witness statement she never saw Heard with any injuries following a fight with Depp in May 2016.

She even claimed in her written statement that Heard, 34, never spoke about being the victim of domestic abuse during her time with Depp, 57, who she described as ‘delightful’ and never aggressive. 

The alleged row has become a focal point of the Depp’s High Court showdown against The Sun newspaper, who branded the actor a ‘wife beater’ in a 2018 article.

But evidence of a conversation between her and Heard in which Divenere vented against Depp’s US attorney Adam Waldman for leaning on her to brand Heard physically abusive in her High Court statement was then shared.

In the conversation, Ms Divenere called Waldman the ‘biggest a**hole under the sun’ after he asked her to abandon Heard’s version of the contentious 2016 fight.

London’s High Court was also today read a text from Waldman to Ms Divenere, who was strongly urged to cooperate with Depp’s legal team or face being subpoenaed. 

And at the trial, Ms Divenere even conceded she had come under enormous pressure from Waldman to provide her statement, which she had not even written herself.

In one section of her statement, referring to the incidents of May 2016, Ms Divenere claims: ‘On none of those days immediately following the abuse claims did I observe any signs of physical abuse or injury, including any redness, swelling, cuts, bruising or damage of any kind.’

When asked by Ms Wass, representing The Sun, whose idea it was to include this, Ms Divenere replied: ‘Adam Waldman.’

She added: ‘Mr Waldman wrote the declaration, I just approved it and signed it.’ Ms Wass asked Ms Divenere: ‘I suggest that you felt pressurised by Mr Waldman to say things that were unfavourable about Miss Heard?’ Ms Divenere replied: ‘Yes.’

When asked about allegations she made about Heard having an affair with James Franco and Elon Musk, while she was still married to Depp, Ms Divenere said: ‘I did feel under pressure to say something about that.’

When asked about another section of her statement, which refers to Heard having spent a night in jail for attacking her former wife, Ms Divenere said: ‘That was Mr Waldman. I didn’t know about that until he told me.’

A text message from Mr Waldman to Ms Divenere was also read out in court, in which he asks her if she wants to ‘remain on the side of the hoax’ or the truth.

Ms Wass asked her: ‘Prior to this did you want to become involved as a witness between Miss Heard and Mr Depp. As a result of this text did you feel uncomfortable. Put under pressure?’

Ms Divenere replied: ‘I felt pressured.’

The High Court also heard a conversation that was secretly recorded by Heard when she spoke with Ms Divenere after she made her statement last June.      

But the High Court in London heard a recording by Ms Heard of a conversation with Miss Divenere after she signed the statement, where she said Depp’s US attorney Adam Waldman drafted the statement and pressured her into signing it.

Ms Divenere said: ‘He thought I was totally conspiring with you, and I.. literally took it that I was like this lying person and he was gonna go ahead and subpoena me.’ 

Ms Heard then told her former aide: ‘It’s not your fault, you didn’t know. I hid it from everybody’.