Where
Heard, 34, gave evidence on behalf of the publishers of a British tabloid
newspaper, who Depp is suing for defamation over a 2018 article that called him
a “wife beater”.
Depp,
57, gave evidence last week, denying all Heard’s allegations of violence and
abuse and saying she assaulted him.
“He’s
nuts mom. Violent and crazy. I am heartbroken that THIS is who I love,” Heard
said in one of the texts she sent her mother on a day in March 2013 when,
according to her, Depp was in a drug- and alcohol-induced rage.The texts were
read to the High Court in London
“I
feel like I’m on a very fast train that’s about to explode but I don’t want to
jump off and leave my love behind. So I stay on the train. Even though I know
it’s about to explode,” she said in another text.
Asked
to explain what she meant by that, Heard told the court: “I was so in love with
Johnny at that time.”
Later
on Thursday, her younger sister Whitney Henriquez appeared in court to back up
her account of her relationship with Depp, who Heard met on a film set in 2011
and married in 2015.
Henriquez
lived next door to the couple for a period and was sometimes asked to intervene
in their disputes. She said she had once been close to Depp, who called her
“sis”.
Asked
about one of the exhibits in the case, a photograph of a coffee table on which
there are several lines of cocaine, a tampon applicator and a box with a skull
and bones design on it labelled “property of JD”, Henriquez said she had passed
the applicator to Depp to snort the cocaine.
“Johnny
was fond of that trick,” she said, rejecting an accusation from Depp’s lawyer
Eleanor Laws that the photo was a set-up.
In
a written statement, released to media as she began her oral evidence,
Henriquez said the relationship between Depp and Heard was tumultuous from the
very start.
“Amber
and Johnny are both very powerful forces and you couldn’t make either of them
do what they didn’t want to do,” she said.
Henriquez
said in the document she saw Depp assault Heard during an argument at the couple’s
penthouse apartment in Los Angeles in March 2015. She is the only witness in
the case, apart from Heard, to offer such a first-hand account.
“Johnny
reached out to shove me out of the way to lunge at Amber,” Henriquez said,
adding that she was standing at the top of a flight of stairs at the time and
had feared being pushed down. Henriquez said that, to protect her, Heard had
struck Depp in line with what Heard herself had told the court.
“There
was a struggle with me stuck in the middle of it, and he really went for
Amber,” Henriquez said. “Johnny grabbed her by the hair with one hand and I saw
him punch her in the head really hard with his other hand multiple times.”
Laws
put it to Henriquez that she had fabricated that account and many other details
in order to help her sister.
“I
am telling the truth,” Henriquez said.
Earlier,
Heard was asked why she now said that Depp had grabbed her, shaken her and
shoved her against a wall during the March 2013 incident, when at the time she
had texted her mother that he had not hit her and that she was “ok physically”.
Heard
said her father had been violent towards her mother throughout their marriage,
and that she became concerned her mother would tell her father about Depp’s
violence towards her. She was afraid of what her father’s reaction would be.
On
Friday, the court is due to hear the conclusion of Henriquez’s testimony as
well as evidence from the last three witnesses, who are friends of Heard’s.
The
trial is set to conclude next week, although no ruling is expected immediately.
