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- BBC News World
Updated 18 minutes
image source, Archyde.com
Kate Moss testified Thursday.
British supermodel Kate Moss said Wednesday that her ex-boyfriend Johnny Depp never abused her, contradicting claims made by the actor’s ex-wife, Amber Heard.
Heard, 36, claimed that he had heard rumors that Depp once pushed Moss down the stairs.
Depp is suing Heard for $50 million over an op-ed she wrote in which she said she was a victim of abuse.
In brief testimony given via video call at trial, Moss, who held a relationship with Depp between 1994 and 1998said he never pushed herbut once came to his aid following he fell down the stairs.
“When I left the room, I slipped down the stairs and hurt my back,” Moss said. “And I screamed because I didn’t know what was wrong with me and it hurt.”
He came running back to help me and took me to my room and got me medical attention.”
Moss said that Depp had never pushed or kicked her during their years together.
Explanation
The claim that he had pushed her was raised earlier in the trial by Heard, who said the image of her then-husband abusing the model had come to her when she witnessed an altercation between Depp and her sister.
image source, Getty Images
Kate Moss and Johnny Depp were a couple between 1994 and 1998.
“[Su] My back was to the ladder and Johnny is swinging toward it,” Heard said. “I don’t doubt it. I do not want. Only, in my head, I think of Kate Moss and the stairs.”
These concerns led her to “shake” Johnny to defend her sister, she said, hitting him “full in the face.”
His lawyers decided not to question Moss.
image source, Archyde.com
a rumor
The one who did testify once more was Johnny Depp, to corroborate Moss’s testimony and accuse his ex-wife of having made up a story.
Dressed in a gray suit, blue shirt and dark yellow tie, Depp was called to the stand by his own lawyers.
“As Kate Moss testified, … exactly what happened is what she said happened,” the actor said.
“I remember talking to Miss Heard regarding that same incident because of the pouring rain because it was raining heavily the day Kate slipped,” Depp said. “I reminded him of the story.”
“Miss Heard took the story and turned it into a very ugly incident in her mind. There was never a time when she pushed Kate down the stairs, but she has thrown this up three times before.”
“That’s it, that’s the whole story, but then the rumor of it, I had never heard a rumor of it before Miss Heard caught it. It is like that,” Depp said.
The defamation case once morest Heard stems from a 2018 op-ed the actress wrote for the Washington Post, in which she said she was a victim of abuse.
image source, EPA
While the article did not identify Depp by name, his lawyers said that damaged his career “incalculably”. She has countersued him for $100 million.
A source close to Heard told the BBC that he believes Moss’s testimony will have little impact in the trial, whose “central issue” is “whether Amber Heard can exercise her right to freedom of expression“.
Depp’s appearance this Wednesday was scheduled. Heard’s team had planned to call him for more questions on Monday, but he abruptly changed his mind without explanation.
Closing arguments of the parties will begin on Fridayfollowed by the deliberations of the jury.
image source, Getty Images
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