'I'm heartbroken this is who I love': Amber Heard to finish giving evidence at Johnny Depp libel trial
Words and video report by ITV News Correspondent Juliet Bremner
Amber Heard texted her mum pleading for help during one of Johnny Depp’s cocaine and whisky fuelled binges that she claims lasted 36 hours.
She texted her mother Paige in March 2013 saying: “He’s nuts” adding, “I am heartbroken that this is who I love.”
She told her mother that Mr Depp was having crazy mood swings because he had spent more than a day drinking and taking drugs.
The text exchange followed a row the couple had over a painting given to Amber Heard by her ex-wife Tasya Van Ree.
She has alleged that Mr Depp tried to set fire to the painting in a jealous rage and then started a violent argument with her.
But she also texted her mother saying she should not worry because Mr Depp was not being attacking her, “It’s OK mum he’s not being violent with me. The crazy mood swings are just really hard to deal with.”
Today in court she insisted that this was not true and in fact Mr Depp had bruised her arm. She had only said this to reassure her mother and because she didn’t want her father to become involved.
Amber Heard told the court today that her father had a problem with alcohol all his live and was violent to her mother. She claimed she did not want to risk her father learning about her rows with Mr Depp as she was afraid he would react violently to her boyfriend.
In court today she tried to explain her mixed feelings about the film star.
“We had a really lovely first year together when he was mostly clean and sober. When he was like that he was generous, funny and I loved him and did not want to lose him. But the other side was the monster,” she said.
She told the court that she always held out hope that he would get clean and sober.
Ms Heard has been describing in more detail how she thinks Mr Depp lost the tip of one of his fingers during what she described as “a three day hostage ordeal “ in Australia.
The incident took place while Mr Depp was filming Dead Men Don’t Talk in Australia in March 2015, and the rented house in which the couple were staying was trashed during a violent argument.
On Thursday, the court heard Ms Heard deny she was responsible for causing the finger to be sliced off.
She said she didn’t see what happened but she believed it must have been cut when Mr Depp became so enraged he pulled a phone off the wall and “smashed it over and over and over” as she demonstrated the action to the judge.
She claimed that it broke into “shreds.”
The actor claimed Mr Depp was so deranged “he was unrecognisable even as the monster.”
Ms Heard claims the violent attack in Australia was so terrifying that she had barricaded herself in her bedroom.
She claimed that he had repeatedly screamed at her that she had ruined his life and that it was her fault that he got drunk and mad. She claimed he threatened "to cut my face” with a bottle.
Ms Heard described the devastation she found when she came downstairs the next morning. She said it appeared that Mr Depp had taken raw meat out of the fridge and placed all over the house, he had also smeared mashed potato and gravy on the walls mixed with blood.
She claimed blood was pooled on the floor and what looked like dripping blood, “I didn’t know what to make of it” she told the court.
There was so much glass on the floor she said, “there was barely enough room to walk through it," claiming the only object she broke in the house throughout the three days was a bottle of wine.
She was asked why she had returned to Australia the next month in April 2015 if she had been physically assaulted in the way she described.
Ms Heard replied, “There were many houses, I was assaulted many time and I still lived in them,” asked to clarify this by the judge she said, “I was used to that.”
This is Ms Heard's fourth day in the witness box and the thirteenth day of Mr Depp’s blockbuster trial against The Sun newspaper. All week, Ms Heard has faced questioning over several allegations she has made against the actor about his violent conduct in the course of their relationship – all of which the Pirates of the Caribbean actor denies.
Mr Depp actor is suing The Sun's publisher, News Group Newspapers (NGN) and its executive editor Dan Wootton over an April 2018 article which labelled him a “wife beater”.
At the end of her evidence, Ms Heard was asked if she wanted this libel case to come to court, she replied: “No I just wanted to be left alone.”
Asked if she if she had benefited either in her career or financially as a result of the proceedings she said “what woman has ever benefited from being the victim of domestic violence.”
She said that she had divorced Mr Depp on a “no fault basis” suggesting that as a result she did not get as much money as she might have been entitled to.
Finally she was asked by her barrister Sasha Wass QC “Is what you have told this court the truth?” and Ms Heard replied “absolutely.”
On Thursday afternoon, Amber Heard’s sister Whitney Henriquez began giving evidence in person at the High Court in London.
Ms Henriquez admitted she and her sister fell out for a time and didn’t not speak over accusations that she had sold Amber and Johnny Depp’s wedding photos.
Until then she had been living with the couple at the penthouse in Los Angeles but moved out after the disagreement.
But she said that they were now “best friends” again and she considered herself part of Amber’s “inner circle”.
In her witness statement she said about the couple, ”Their relationship was tumultuous from the very start. I wasn’t aware of violence at the beginning, but I do remember Amber talking about them having big fights and being concerned for my sister."
She told the court that “at the beginning” she really liked Johnny despite finding out the couple had long rows. Amber told her they would have verbal fights – sometimes for days on end – and after that Johnny would leave her these long, loving voice messages and they would reconcile.
Speaking about one of the first times she became aware that the relationship was violent, she said that she had been called to her sister’s apartment after a fight. At the time she said she got on really well with Mr Depp and she sometimes was “able to talk him off the ledge.”
Whitney claimed it was obvious her sister was upset and the situation “was a mess.”
She told the court, “I noticed one side of her face was super red and she had what looked like a split lip and I remember thinking to myself, 'that’s not from crying'."
Ms Henriquez was shown pictures of her sister and herself with Keith Richards and Johnny Depp taken shortly afterwards, and she accepted that there was no sign of any “visible injury”.
Shown a second photograph of Ms Heard with Ian McLagan, a musician who was also taking part in the documentary, taken on the following day, Whitney said she felt that Amber did have a “split lip” on this picture despite wearing make up.
She also recalled that Mr Depp had been very jealous of her sister particularly her relationships with her ex-wife Tasya Van Ree.