Amber Heard's sister has alleged that she was asked by Johnny Depp to sign a non-disclosure agreement after he hit her while attacking Heard.
The ongoing trial between Depp and Heard saw the Aquaman actress's sister Whitney Henriquez take to the stand this week as a witness.
She detailed an incident in March 2015 in which Johnny Depp allegedly hit her in the back before clutching Amber's hair and hitting her, and trashing her closet.
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The event has been referred to in court as 'the staircase incident'.
According to Henriquez's testimony, she had been staying in one of the apartments in the Eastern Columbia Building in Los Angeles, where Depp and Heard shared a penthouse.
She alleges that her sister woke her up one night to tell her that Depp had been cheating on her.
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Leaving Heard in her apartment, Henriquez claims that she then left to speak to Depp herself. She testified that Depp was 'clearly drunk' and blamed Heard when she confronted him about his actions.
Soon after, Heard reappeared in the apartment and, Henriquez claims, the pair began screaming at each other.
Recounting the incident, Heard's sister stated: "I’m standing up there at the top of the stairs with my back to the stairs and that’s when Johnny runs up the stairs.
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"I’m facing Amber. He comes up behind me and he strikes me in the back."
She continued that Heard then yelled at Depp: "Don’t hit my f***ing sister" before 'smacking' him.
After explaining how he hurled a can of Red Bull towards them, Henriquez claims that Depp 'had already grabbed Amber by the hair with one hand and was whacking her repeatedly in the face with the other'.
The next morning, she alleges the sisters found Heard's closet had been 'completely destroyed', and went on to claim that she later found a non-disclosure agreement on her counter, which she opted not to sign.
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Depp is suing Amber Heard for defamation over a 2018 op-ed article in The Washington Post.
The Pirates of the Caribbean actor and his team argue that the article implies Heard was physically and sexually abused by Depp when they were married, although the article does not mention him by name.
The trial comes following Depp's failure to overturn a High Court ruling in the UK, which rejected the actor's claim that The Sun newspaper committed libel when they called him a 'wife-beater' for the alleged abuse against Heard.
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The trial continues.
Topics: Celebrity, Johnny Depp, News