LONDON: Amber Heard insisted on Thursday that she never wanted the world to know the details of her years of alleged abuse by Johnny Depp, as she concluded her evidence in her ex-husband’s libel case against a British tabloid.

Taking the witness stand for a fourth straight day, Heard testified that everything she had said at the High Court in London was true.

She said she just wanted to be “left alone” after the breakup of her tempestuous marriage with Depp and that she wanted to “save him the embarrassment. I didn’t want to do this, I did not want to expose this totality of what really happened to me,” Heard said.

“I didn’t want to talk about everything that happened in our marriage and happened in our relationship.”

She also suggested that having details of her relationship with Depp dissected in open court had and would continue to damage her career.

“What woman has ever benefited from being a victim of domestic violence,” she wondered.

Heard was in court because Depp, 57, is suing News Group Newspapers, the publisher of The Sun, and the newspaper’s executive editor, Dan Wootton, over an April 2018 article that labelled him a wife-beater.

The Sun’s defence relies on 14 allegations made by Heard of violence by Depp between 2013 and 2016, in settings as varied as a rented house in Australia, his private island in the Bahamas and a private jet.

In her testimony on Thursday, the actress-model reiterated allegations that Depp would go on a bender that often lasted days and abuse her when he was high on drugs or was drunk.

Johnny, when he was clean and sober, could be a wonderful person, generous, loving, she said. “He’s a remarkable man when he’s like that and I loved him. The other side of him was a monster, but I always held out hope he would get clean and sober.”

In her first three days of testimony, Heard, 34, accused Depp of an array of acts of violence, including throwing bottles at her like grenades, headbutting her and even of stubbing out a cigarette on his cheek.

Published in Dawn, July 24th, 2020