Depp Accuses Heard of Violent Behavior on Witness Stand, Claims He Stayed in Marriage Out of Fear She Would Kill Herself

Johnny Depp returned to the stand on Wednesday in his defamation trial against his ex-wife Amber Heard, claiming he stayed in an abusive marriage with the actress out of fear she would kill herself.

“I wanted to try to make it work. I thought maybe I could help her,” Depp said of why he stayed. “I thought maybe I could bring her around.”

Depp went on to say that Heard had “spoken of suicide on a couple of occasions,” adding, “So that also becomes a factor, that’s something that lives in the back of your brain.”

The actor went on to say that Heard’s alleged suicide threats reminded him of his mother Betty Sue’s, as she would purportedly say similar things to Depp’s father when he tried to leave their marriage.

“I’m sure it’s somehow related to my father remaining stoic as my mother would beat him to death,” Depp also said of why he stayed in a relationship with Heard despite alleged violence and abuse.

The actor went on to detail an alleged incident in which Heard stopped him from leaving their apartment and said she would die without him.

“When I would leave sometimes, she would stop me at the elevator with the security guards, crying, screaming, ‘I can’t live without you! I’m going to die!'” he said.

He claimed that when he managed to escape to another property one night, she showed up in her nightgown screaming in front of his house.

“It was ludicrous, it was out of control, it was uncontrollable,” he recalled, sharing that the two later began recording each other’s arguments.

Prior to explaining why he stayed in the marriage for so long, Depp outlined the alleged abuse he faced from Heard, claiming he would sometimes hide in the bathroom.

“It could begin with a slap. It could begin with a shove. It could begin with throwing a TV remote at my head. It could be throwing a glass of wine in my face,” he said, detailing how the abuse turned from verbal bullying to violence.

The actor likened Heard’s view of him as “pure hatred,” adding, “If I stayed to argue, eventually, I was sure it was going to escalate into violence, and oftentimes it did.”

“As it escalated and continued to escalate, I went to what I learned as a youth, which was to remove myself from the situation so it couldn’t continue,” he said, referring to the abuse he faced from his mother Sue, adding, “There were times when I would just go and lock myself in the bathroom or a place where she couldn’t get to.”

Depp had previously lost a libel case against the publisher of Britain’s The Sun in 2020. The British High Court ruled that the claim Depp was a “wife-beater” was “substantially true.”

Watch above, via Law and Crime.