Kate Moss Testifies that Johnny Depp ‘Never Pushed’ Her Down Stairs In Defamation Trial

3 minute read

British model Kate Moss took to the stand Wednesday morning as a witness for Johnny Depp’s legal team in the defamation case against his ex-wife, actor Amber Heard.

During her short testimony over a video call, Moss refuted a rumor that Heard had mentioned about Depp pushing Moss down a flight of stairs while they dated in the 1990s.

“[Depp] never pushed me, kicked me or threw me down any stairs,” Moss told the court.

The trial is rounding out its sixth and final week of proceedings, following a 2018 op-ed Heard wrote for the Washington Post, in which she accused an unnamed former partner of domestic abuse. Depp has denied the accusations, and is suing for defamation after the article reportedly “devastated” his career as an actor.

Depp’s lawyers called Moss as a witness because Heard had previously alluded to an incident in which Depp allegedly pushed Moss down stairs while they were dating. Earlier in the trial, Heard had said she swung at Depp during a fight in 2015 in which he attempted to strike Heard’s sister at the top of a flight of stairs.

“I just, in my head, instantly think of Kate Moss and the stairs and I swung at him,” Heard said on May 5. When Heard brought up Moss’ name, Depp’s lead lawyer visibly celebrated with a fist pump: his legal team would therefore be able to call upon Moss as a witness.

In her roughly three-minute testimony, Moss described an incident during a vacation she and Depp took to Jamaica during their relationship, which lasted from 1994 to 1998.

“We were leaving the room and Johnny left the room before I did, and there had been a rainstorm. And as I left the room I slid down the stairs and I hurt my back,” Moss said. “And I screamed because I didn’t know what happened to me, and I was in pain, and he came running back to help me and carried me to my room and got me medical attention.”

Depp’s lawyer then asked Moss, “Did Mr. Depp push you in any way down the stairs?” Moss replied, “No.”

This is not the first trial in which Heard mentioned Depp allegedly pushing Moss down the stairs during a testimony. In 2020, when Heard was a witness in Depp’s libel case against The Sun, she said, “I remembered information I had heard [that] he pushed a former girlfriend—I believe it was Kate Moss—down the stairs. I had heard this rumor from two people, and it was fresh in my mind.”

Moss rebutted the accusation a day after the judge denied Depp’s bid to dismiss Heard’s $100 million counterlawsuit.

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Write to Julia Zorthian at julia.zorthian@time.com