Kate Moss testifies that Johnny Depp did not push her down stairs

Kate Moss testified by video for just three minutes on Wednesday in the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard defamation trial in the US, dispelling a rumor that Depp had pushed her down a flight of steps when he was her boyfriend in the 1990s.

The 48-year-old supermodel, speaking from her English home in Gloucestershire, told the court that she and Depp had been in a romantic relationship from 1994 to 1998.

Depp’s attorney Benjamin Chew asked Moss if anything had happened while they were on holiday at the GoldenEye resort in Jamaica.

“We were leaving the room, and Johnny left the room before I did, and there had been a rainstorm. As I left the room, I slid down the stairs and I hurt my back,” Moss told the court via the video feed.

“I screamed because I didn’t know what had happened to me and I was in pain. He came running back to help me and carried me to my room and got me medical attention,” she added.

Moss said Depp had not pushed her down the stairs. Asked if, at any point in their relationship, he had pushed her in that way, Moss said: “No.”

“He never pushed me, kicked me or threw me down any stairs, no,” Moss told the court.

Heard’s attorneys declined to cross-examine Moss, and she was told she was free to go.

Moss was called by Depp’s legal team, who were seen appearing to celebrate when her name was mentioned by Heard during her testimony, when she revived the rumor that Depp had pushed her down a flight of stairs.

Moss’s testimony came during the rebuttal phase of the long-running defamation case. Each side has sought to present the other as an abuser during their 15-month marriage.

Depp is suing Heard for $50m for libel in Fairfax county, Virginia, over a December 2018 op-ed she wrote in the Washington Post, describing herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse”.

His lawyers say he was defamed by the article, although it never mentioned his name.

Depp has denied he ever struck Heard and says she was the abuser in the relationship.

Heard has testified about more than a dozen instances of physical abuse she says she suffered at Depp’s hands, and has counter-sued her ex-husband for $100m.

In November, 2020, Depp lost a high-stakes libel action in the UK courts against the British tabloid the Sun after the newspaper described him as a “wife-beater”.

Moss’s testimony in the US court came in the final week of the jury trial, with closing arguments expected on Friday.

The case continues.