Amber Heard claimed Johnny Depp held her pet dog out of the window of a moving car while “howling like an animal” as she tearfully began her evidence in their blockbuster libel trial.
The actress, 36, told jurors she was subjected to repeated bouts of violence from Depp, 58, during their four-year relationship, as he alternated between a “monster” abuser and a loving husband.
Recalling an alleged incident when Depp had been drinking and her sister Christi had to help get him to a meeting, Heard claimed the Pirates of the Caribbean star grabbed hold of his dog Boo during the journey.
“At some point he starts howling out the window,” she said. “If I remember correctly, he grabs Boo, his dog, a slightly chunkier teacup Yorkie. He grabs this teacup Yorkie and holds Boo out the window of the moving car.
“He’s howling like an animal while holding the dog out the window. And everyone in the car – I’ll never forget it - just froze.
“No one did anything. I too was torn as to what I should do, because I didn’t want to do anything to cause him to react and drop the dog.
“It’s this eerie moment where he’s howling and holding this animal out of the car window. More than that weird memory, I have a memory of everyone just kind of not really reacting to him.”
Heard broke down in tears as she claimed Depp performed a “cavity search” for cocaine on her during a May 2013 holiday to a trailer park in Hicksville, California.
She said Depp had flown into a “rage” after accusing Heard of flirting with another woman, tearing off her clothes while she “just stood there staring at the stupid light”.
She told the court: “I didn’t know what to do.”
Two months later, Heard says she was grabbed by the throat by Depp who threatened to kill her during a yacht trip around the Bahamas with his children, Lily-Rose and Jack.
The Aquaman star said they took a family holiday on the vessel which Depp was about to sell to author JK Rowling, and the actor was secretly drinking but “didn’t want to tell his kids”.
“He was hiding it from them, putting it in coffee cups and drinking it,” she said. Heard claimed Depp took a “scary” jump off the yacht, and she was left to comfort Lily-Rose, then 14, when she suffered a panic attack.
Depp then accused her of “telling on him and calling him a drunk in front of his kids”, she said. “He slams me up against the side wall of the bedroom by my neck and holds me there for a second and tells me he could f***ing kill me and that I was an embarrassment, this whole thing was a joke, I made him feel sick.”
Heard said she was “hurt” by the insults, and a short time later she and the children got off at Depp’s private Bahamas island, Little Hall’s Pond Cay, with the intention of leaving by helicopter.
“I felt bad about leaving”, she added. “I also felt I’d done something wrong. He was mad at me, I wasn’t sure what I’d done.”
Heard is due to continue her evidence in the libel trial in Virginia later on Thursday.
