Los Angeles (US): Supermodel Kate Moss shared what made her decide to testify on behalf of her ex-boyfriend Johnny Depp during his May defamation trial against Amber Heard. Heard first alleged that Depp pushed Kate Moss down the stairs during her testimony at Depp's UK defamation trial against British tabloid The Sun for calling him a "wife-beater."
In November 2020, Depp lost that UK libel lawsuit case and the court upheld the outlet's claims as being "substantially true." In March 2021, Depp's attempt to overturn the decision was overruled.
In Depp's 2022 trial in the U.S. against Amber Heard, where he accused his ex-wife of defaming him in an op-ed about domestic abuse, the staircase incident came up again. Heard said that she "swung at" Depp to defend her younger sister Whitney Henriquez and was triggered when she thought about "Kate Moss and stairs."
However, Moss, appeared virtually in court in May to deny rumours that the actor shoved her down a flight of stairs while they were dating between 1994 and 1998. "I slid down the stairs and I hurt my back," Moss said under oath in May. "He never pushed me, kicked me or threw me down any stairs."
READ | From a Relation to Defamation, Johnny Depp and Amber Heard's story through pictures
Now Moss is explaining why she supported Depp in his US trial this year. "I know the truth about Johnny. I know he never kicked me down the stairs. I had to say that truth," Moss said in an interview.
During the U.S. trial where Moss testified, Depp's lawyer Camille Vasquez asked during cross-examination, "You didn't expect Ms. Moss to testify that that never happened, did you?" To which Heard responded, "Incorrect." She said, "I know how many people will come out of the woodwork to be in support of Johnny. It is clear by this courtroom how many people will do that."
Heard added, "Everybody who was around in the '90s and the early aughts knew that rumour. I had heard that rumour from multiple people. Of course that's what flashed through my head when my violent husband not only swung for me but all of a sudden swung for my sister. Of course I thought of that. I did not expect her to show up or not expect her to show up. It didn't matter," Heard said of Moss.
"It doesn't change what I believed at the time, when we were on the stairs and I thought he was gonna kill my sister by pushing her down the stairs."
While the jury found the actress defamed Depp in her 2018 op-ed and awarded him over $10 million, they sided with Heard on one of her three counterclaims, finding that Depp defamed her via comments made by his attorney Adam Waldman in 2020. Depp and Heard are now both in the process of appealing the verdicts in their Virginia defamation case. (With agency inputs)
