Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
DEPP ‘PUSHED KATE MOSS DOWN STAIRS’
Amber tells court of rumour as she admits punch
JOHNNY Depp allegedly pushed Kate Moss down stairs when they dated in the 1990s, a court heard yesterday.
His ex-wife Amber Heard, 34, made the explosive claim as she alleged he was about to do the same in 2015 to her sister Whitney Henriquez. She also admitted punching Depp.
Amber told a High Court hearing: “I had heard this rumour from two people and it was fresh in my mind. In a flash, I reacted in defence of her.”
JOHNNY Depp was rumoured to have pushed Kate Moss down stairs while they were dating during the 1990s, ex-wife Amber Heard told a court yesterday.
The actress, 34, admitted that she punched the Hollywood A-lister during a 2015 row at their Los Angeles home.
But she claimed she did it to stop him pushing her sister, Whitney Henriquez, down stairs after recalling a “rumour” that he had done the same thing to British supermodel Ms Moss.
Aquaman star Ms Heard made the explosive claims on her second day of giving evidence in Mr Depp’s libel action against The Sun newspaper. The Pirates of the Caribbean star, 57, sued over a 2018 article labelling him a “wife beater”.
Eleanor Laws QC, representing Mr Depp, asked about the “stairs incident” in which Ms Heard has said she believed he was going to push Ms Henriquez.
She said: “This was a very nasty row between you and Mr Depp and it was you who was the violent one.” Ms Heard replied: “Johnny hit both myself and my sister”, before denying she spat at him or threw a can of Red Bull at him.
Ms Laws then put it to Ms Heard that she also “punched him (Mr Depp) in the face with a closed fist”.
Ms Heard replied: “I did strike Johnny that day in defence of my sister.
“He was about to push her down the stairs and, the moment before that happened, I remembered information I had heard, he pushed a former girlfriend – I believe it was Kate Moss – down the
stairs. I had heard this rumour from two people and it was fresh in my mind. In a flash, I reacted in defence of her.”
Ms Heard went on to allege that Mr Depp had punched her “for years” and said “for years I had never even hit him”.
She said: “I never so much as landed a blow and I will never forget this incident... it was the first time after all these years [I hit him].”
Ms Laws said Ms Heard had changed her story, adding she “didn’t mention a thing about Kate Moss being in your mind, you are just making this up as you go along”. Playing a clip from Ms Heard’s 2016 deposition in LA, in which she talks about the alleged incident, Ms Laws said that at no point did the actress mention Ms Moss.
Ms Heard said: “No, I didn’t have a chance. I’ve not had the liberty of time or space or energy even to list every thought that crossed my mind.”
Ms Heard also said she did not seek a restraining order immediately after Mr Depp allegedly threw her mobile at her face in May 2016 because she was trying to protect both him and their privacy.
She told the court: “I had been doing this for years.”
And she rejected a suggestion that scars on her arm that she claims she got trying to escape from Mr Depp during a “three-day hostage situation” on a 2015 visit to Australia were actually self-harm injuries.
She said: “I’ve never self-harmed. Johnny’s a self-harmer.”
The High Court hearing continues. @Mirrortom