Amber Heard Speaks in Johnny Depp Libel Trial: 'I Was Afraid He Was Going to Kill Me'

Johnny Depp’s libel trial in London’s High Court against News Group Newspapers, publisher of U.K. tabloid The Sun, has entered week three. Depp sued the company for labeling him a “wife beater” in the press, which The Sun maintains was founded upon 14 credible allegations of abuse by ex-wife Amber Heard. On Monday, Heard entered the witness stand for the first time.

According to The Guardian, Heard told the court “Johnny attacked me a lot of times, on many different occasions.” She wrote in her witness statement, which was released to the press Monday:

He had a violent and dark way of speaking: the way he talked about our relationship being ‘dead or alive’ and telling me that death was the only way out of the relationship; the way he would describe what he wanted to do to me if I left him or hurt him (for example, carving my face up so no one else would want me). His language towards others who he didn’t like or was threatened by (detailing how he wanted to have someone tortured or how cheap and easy it would be to have someone knocked off) [was violent]. He could be very intense and dark.”

She also said that instances of abuse happened “behind closed doors,” and therefore Depp’s employees did not see it take place. “I never got violent. Many years into the relationship I did try and defend myself when it got serious and I thought my life was threatened,” she said.

Heard told the court that Depp referred to her by “all kinds of demeaning and derogatory comments about actresses (‘two-bit whores’) and about me wanting to work as an actress,” routinely making comments about her clothing. “He demeaned me anytime I tried to wear anything that could be seen as sexy, calling me a ‘whore’, ‘slut’, ‘fame-hungry’ and ‘an attention whore’, but it got worse over time. He started saying things like, ‘Well I’m going to have to watch you get raped’ and ‘I hope you get railed by a bunch of fucking fellas’. Sometimes he used racial epithets about the men I would be—or deserved to be—assaulted by.”

According to Deadline, Heard also told the court about a particular incident of alleged abuse in 2015, which she claims Depp blamed on “another personality” he called “the monster.” “There was an argument in a hotel room in Tokyo that resulted in Johnny kneeling on my back and hitting me on the back of the head,” she said. “He would blame all his actions on a self-created third party instead of himself, which he often called ‘the monster.’ He would speak about it as if it was another person or personality and not him doing all these things.”

She believed “some incidents were so severe that I was afraid he was going to kill me, either intentionally or just by losing control and going too far,” The BBC reports.

Heard’s testimony is expected to continue for two more days, per the Guardian.