Crime & Justice

Depp threatened to kill me many times, Heard tells court

London, Jul 20 (efe-epa).- “Johnny Depp threatened to kill me many times,” American actress Amber Heard said on Monday at London’s high court during the libel trial initiated by Depp against The Sun.

The American actor and Heard’s ex-husband is demanding compensation from the British tabloid over an article published in April 2018 which referred to him as a “wife beater”.

Depp has denied 14 allegations of domestic violence that allegedly took place between early 2013 and May 2016, but admitted he had alcohol problems at the time the feature refers to.

On the 10th day of the trial, Heard took the witness stand to answer questions about the allegations of domestic violence on which The Sun bases its defense.

In a statement submitted to the court, the actress accused Depp of “extremely controlling and intimidating behaviour” and of verbal and physical abuse, including screaming, swearing, issuing threats, punching, slapping, kicking, head-butting and choking.

“Some incidents were so severe that I was afraid he was going to kill me, either intentionally, or just by losing control and going too far,” she added.

Heard said Depp was “very good at manipulating people”.

“He would blame all his actions on a self-created third party instead of himself, which he often called ‘the monster’,” she told the court.

“He would speak about it as if it was another person or personality and not him doing all these things.”

According to Heard, Depp “had a violent and dark way of speaking: the way he spoke of our relationship was ‘alive or dead’ and he told me that death was the only way to get out of the relationship.”

The actress denied being a usual drug user and said the accusations that she married Depp for money or to advance in her career were “absurd”.

She said she was confident that she could “repair Johnny” and that she stayed with Depp hoping he would get “clean”.

Depp, on the other hand, assured “the abuser of the relationship” was ex-wife Heard and accused her of keeping a “dossier” on their relationship to get an “insurance policy” so she could join the MeToo movement.

Since 7 July, former and current employees of Depp and Heard, as well as doctors, relatives and friends, have testified in the trial, which is expected to end on Monday 27, although the date of the ruling is yet to be determined.

Heard and Depp met in 2011 whilst filming The Rum Diary and got married in 2015 in Los Angeles, US, a marriage that ended in divorce 15 months later. EFE/EPA

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