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Amber Heard’s sister Whitney Henriquez testified Johnny Depp wanted her to sign an NDA after a fight.
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Henriquez said Depp held Heard by the hair and repeatedly smacked her with his other hand.
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The fight followed a revelation where Depp appeared to be cheating on Heard, Henriquez said.
Johnny Depp repeatedly struck Amber Heard during a fight that took place shortly after their marriage, Heard’s sister Whitney Henriquez testified at the couple’s defamation trial on Wednesday.
Soon after, Depp tried to cover up the event by getting Henriquez to sign a non-disclosure agreement, Henriquez said in court during the high-profile defamation trial between the two movie stars.
The alleged fight took place in March 2015, around a month after Depp and Heard hosted their wedding ceremony. Henriquez said she noticed the “Pirates of the Caribbean” actor in the kitchen of one of his penthouses, drinking.
Depp was distraught, Henriquez testified on Wednesday. Clearly drunk, she alleged, Depp was talking to one of his security guards, Travis McGivern, about how Heard was upset over finding text messages between him and a previous girlfriend.
“He starts saying that this woman was meaningless, it wasn’t anything special, she’s nothing special,” Henriquez said. “But then he immediately shifted to, ‘Well, Amber pushed me, Amber made me do it, and of course I’m cheating on her.’ And suddenly became about Amber made him do it.”
Heard appeared on the mezzanine level, above the kitchen, and started shouting, Henriquez testified, alleging that Depp started yelling back.
“He’s calling her a fucking whore, fucking cunt, used-up trash bag,” Henriquez testified. “They were saying horrible things to one another. She was calling him old and fat. It was a fight.”
Henriquez rushed to the top of the stairs to try to calm Heard down, she said, and bring her to her own apartment down the hall. Depp ran up after her and struck Henriquez in the back, Henriquez testified. Then Heard stepped in, she said, yelling “don’t hit my fucking sister!” and punched Depp in the face, according to Henriquez.
Depp, before his security guard could intervene, struck Heard in the face multiple times, Henriquez alleged.
“Johnny had already grabbed Amber by the hair with one hand and was whacking her repeatedly in the face with the other,” she testified.
As McGivern led Depp away, the actor continued raging, Henriquez said in court.
“I hear Johnny’s voice shouting, ‘I fucking hate you. I hate you both. You fucking cunts, you fucking whores,'” Henriquez said. “And I hear crashing and banging and smashing, and he starts screaming like an animal. And I then just moved Amber into the next room and I just kept her there all night.”
Soon after that event, Henriquez said, Depp asked her to sign a non-disclosure agreement. She refused.
“It was after this point that Johnny had accused me of selling stories to the media, which is absolutely untrue,” Henriquez said.
‘In the line of fire’
Henriquez testified in the Fairfax County, Virginia courthouse in the trial over the defamation lawsuit Depp filed against Heard. Depp alleges that Heard defamed him by describing herself in a December 2018 Washington Post op-ed as a victim of domestic violence. Though Heard doesn’t mention Depp directly in the column, Depp alleges it was implied he was abusive.
He has also claimed Heard was the true abuser in the relationship.
Heard has denied the allegations and filed a counterclaim, alleging Depp physically abused her numerous times before and during their marriage, which ended in 2016.
Heard described the alleged fight in her own testimony earlier in the trial, saying Henriquez “threw herself in the line of fire.”
According to Heard, the fight followed her finding messages on Depp’s iPad that indicated he rekindled a relationship with one of his ex-girlfriends and had visited her the day after their wedding. Heard appeared to believe Depp may push her down the stairs, and she recounted in her testimony how it was the first time — after many occasions where she says Depp struck her — that she recalled landing a blow on him, and that
McGivern testified earlier in the trial and gave a different version of events. He said the two had a verbal fight, and that Heard threw objects at Depp and tried to punch him. McGivern said that Heard threw a can of Red Bull at Depp, while Henriquez says Depp threw the can at Heard but accidentally hit Debbie Lloyd, Depp’s personal nurse, who was also present.
Lloyd’s prerecorded testimony, also shown earlier in the trial, did not include any references to the purported fight.
Henriquez began testifying Wednesday afternoon after jurors viewed portions of prerecorded depositions from Raquel “Rocky” Pennington, a friend of Heard’s, and Pennington’s now-ex-husband Joshua Drew. The three of them all lived rent-free in penthouses owned by Depp in a luxury Los Angeles apartment building.
Pennington and Drew both testified they did not see physical violence between Depp and Heard, but both said they witnessed verbal fights, and that Depp smashed property during and after those arguments. Pennington also testified she saw Heard’s face bruised following fights with Depp.
According to Henriquez, Depp became emotionally volatile while under the influence of substances, which Henriquez said once led him to dangle his dog out the window and joke about microwaving the pet.
And, she alleged, Depp used drugs often. Henriquez said they used cocaine, MDMA, weed, and shrooms together often. Once, she said, Depp consumed a Ziploc bag full of “unknown pills” for the fun of it.
“He just took them all at once to see what would happen, and laughed about it,” Henriquez said.
Over time, Henriquez said, Depp became more controlling. Heard had to stop using a password on her phone, or use an easy password, so that Depp could check it, she alleged. In the early days of his relationship with Heard, Henriquez testified, Depp made jokes about Heard’s outfits.
Before she knew it, Depp’s stylist was Heard’s stylist, and her clothes became more conservative, she said.
The same thing happened with medical issues Heard had, she said. Depp had retained a doctor and nurse to help with addiction issues, which Depp testified was only for an opioid dependency he developed following a leg injury. Before long, Depp’s doctor assigned a nurse to Heard, Henriquez alleged..
“All of a sudden, for really unclear reasons, Amber had a nurse administering medication,” Henriquez said Wednesday. “I thought it was strange. I didn’t think Amber needed medication on a daily basis.”
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