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Amber Heard says Johnny Depp hurt himself during fights by cutting his arms, holding knives to his chest and putting cigarettes out on himself

Amber Heard
Amber Heard testifies in Fairfax County, Virginia, court. STEVE HELBER/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
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Amber Heard said Johnny Depp would "often" self-harm during fights, using knives to cut himself and putting lit cigarettes out on himself. 

Heard spoke about Depp's alleged self-harm tendencies as she continued direct testimony in Fairfax County, Virginia, court on Monday. 

Depp has taken Heard to trial, saying his ex-wife defamed him by insinuating in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed that she had been the victim of domestic violence.

Heard countersued Depp, and has spent her time on the stand so far telling the jury about multiple physical and sexual assaults she says she suffered at the hands of Depp.

Heard said Monday that Depp would regularly self-harm during their arguments "especially as our relationship was ending" in 2016. 

"He often in fights would cut his arms or hold a knife to his chest or draw blood, superficially at first," Heard said.

"He also put cigarettes out on himself. He'd flick them at me and once or twice he'd try and put out one on me, but mostly he would do it while screaming at me," Heard added. "He once did it right in front of me, screaming at my face as he put the cigarette out on his cheek."

Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp arrives in court on Monday, May 16, 2022.  STEVE HELBER/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Heard's testimony Monday morning, continuing direct examination after a weeklong break for the trial, delved into the ways Heard says Depp worked himself into substance-fueled rages where he exhibited erratic behavior and recurrently beat her.

According to Heard, Depp's abuse worsened in 2014, after a weeklong detox trip on his private Bahamas island. After the trip, Heard said, Depp fired the doctors and nurses he used to treat his own addiction issues.

Depp was hallucinating during that period, Heard testified, and she described being fearful of the actor working himself up into paranoid bouts of rage because he believed another man was in the house. She said the phantom person would trigger escalating anger from Depp, leading to assaults on her.

"I was fearful he was going to believe he was angry at me even though we were not fighting," Heard said.

Depp and several of his employees have testified throughout the trial that while he often drank and used cocaine and marijuana, his substance abuse was always under control and he only sought medical attention to deal with an opioid addiction he developed following a leg injury.

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Jacob Shamsian
Jacob Shamsian is a correspondent on Business Insider's Enterprise news desk. He is also a Global Reporter for Axel Springer.He was previously on BI's Legal Affairs desk, covering major litigation, courtroom trials, and the legal industry.Jacob has reported on the criminal trials of Donald Trump, Ghislaine Maxwell, Sam Bankman-Fried, Sean "Diddy" Combs, R. Kelly, and Anna Sorokin (AKA Anna Delvey), He's also covered blockbuster civil trials, including both E. Jean Carroll v. Trump trials, the New York Attorney General's fraud trial against Trump, Sarah Palin v. The New York Times, and Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard.His stories have been cited in judicial rulings, lawsuits, letters from congressional committees, and in numerous media publications. He was a pool reporter in Donald Trump's Manhattan criminal trial.Jacob has been interviewed on CNN, the docuseries "Surviving R. Kelly," ABC's "Good Morning America," and BBC News, among other programs. His work has been cited by media outlets, including The New York Times, Bloomberg News, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, and New York magazine. He's also written for GQ, The Awl, The New Republic, Entertainment Weekly, Time, and Modern Farmer.You can reach Jacob on Signal at JacobShamsian.07.
Ashley was formerly a senior news reporter at Insider. Before joining Insider, she worked as a general assignment reporter at DailyMail.com, where she focused on breaking news across the US. Ashley is a graduate of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, where she earned a degree in magazine journalism.