Amber Heard’s Kate Moss mention had Johnny Depp’s legal team cheering

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“Johnny Depp’s team is going to argue that they should be permitted to call her to debunk any rumour about Johnny Depp pushing (Moss) down stairs,” criminal defence attorney Halim Dhanidina added.

Now, Depp’s lawyers may seek to introduce her past allegations of abuse, including a 2009 altercation with former partner Tasya van Ree in which Heard was arrested but not charged for domestic violence.

While she was on the stand last week, Heard, 36, recounted one of the couple’s alleged fights telling jurors that she hit Depp, 58, because she feared he was going to push her sister Whitney down the stairs.

“She threw herself in the line of fire,” Heard said of her sister during a 2015 fight with her ex-husband. “She was trying to get Johnny to stop. Her back was to the staircase, and Johnny swings at her… I don’t hesitate and wait; I instantly think of Kate Moss and stairs … and I swung at him. In all my relationships to date, I hadn’t landed a blow. For the first time, I hit him square in the face.”

She continued, “He didn’t push my sister down the stairs.”

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“I remembered information I had heard he pushed a former girlfriend — I believe it was Kate Moss — down the stairs,” Heard previously testified while describing the altercation involving her sister and Depp. “I had heard this rumour from two people and it was fresh in my mind.”

Moss and Depp called it quits in 1997 after four years of dating, but she never accused him of abuse.

According to PEOPLE, the couple got into several heated arguments, including a 1994 incident at New York City’s Mark Hotel in which the actor was arrested for allegedly trashing his hotel room.

Moss spoke about her heartbreak at the end of their relationship in a 2012 interview with Vanity Fair.

“There’s nobody that’s ever really been able to take care of me. Johnny did for a bit. I believed what he said. Like if I said, ‘What do I do?’, he’d tell me. And that’s what I missed when I left.”

In a 1998 chat with Hello magazine, Depp blamed the split on himself. “I let my work get in the way and I didn’t give her the attention I should have done,” he said.

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During her testimony last week, Heard painted a picture of an allegedly controlling and abusive Depp, who, as he was known to the world as one of Hollywood’s biggest film stars, was a Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde-like “monster” behind closed doors.

While on a 2014 flight from Boston to Los Angeles, Heard alleged that Depp kicked her from behind in a jealous rage over intimate scenes she had filmed with actor James Franco.

“No one did anything. I felt so embarrassed that he could kick me to the ground and no one would do anything about it,” she said tearfully.

Another time, Heard described Depp’s tantrum when he accused her of flirting with someone at the 2014 Met Gala in New York.

“He shoved me down on the sofa and at some point he whacked me in the face. I think that was the first time (where I thought), ‘Is this a broken nose?’ I remember my nose being swollen, discoloured and red.”

When he took the stand last month, Depp alleged that Heard abused him, and severed the tip of his finger.

“She has a need for violence. It erupts out of nowhere,” Depp said.

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Reps for both Depp and Heard issued statements late last week after the Aquaman star spent hours detailing alleged abuse she experienced at the hands of her ex.

“As Mr. Depp’s counsel correctly predicted in their opening statements last month, Ms. Heard did indeed deliver ‘the performance of her life’ in her direct examination,” a representative for Depp said in a statement.

In response, a spokesperson for Heard issued a statement to the Toronto Sun in which they said Depp’s “defamation claim is falling apart so rapidly that his counsel are turning from prosecutor to persecutor.”

With the trial breaking until May 16, social media users have been dissecting Heard’s time on the stand, with some falsely accusing the actress of copying elements of her testimony from movies like The Talented Mr. Ripley and Gone Girl as well as “posing” for crying photos while on the stand. Another wild theory making the rounds accuses Heard of sniffing drugs on the stand.

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Depp is suing Heard for $50 million, claiming that her 2018 Washington Post op-ed defamed him when she described herself as a survivor of domestic abuse. The article never mentioned him by name, but Depp claimed the article implied he was the abuser and impacted his acting career.

Heard has counter-sued for $100 million, arguing Depp smeared her by calling her a liar.

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