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Topics: Johnny Depp, Amber Heard, Film and TV
Cameron Frew
Both Amber Heard's sister and actress Ellen Barkin are set to testify as part of her defence against Johnny Depp.
Depp's $50 million (£38m) defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife, centred on a 2018 Washington Post op-ed in which Heard claimed she had become 'a public figure representing domestic abuse', has paused in Virginia.
The trial is set to resume on Monday, 16 May, with Heard's testimony to continue after the Pirates of the Caribbean star's team rested their case.
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The trial officially kicked off on 11 April, with each day being as dramatic as the last, whether it's a psychologist hired by Depp's team diagnosing Heard with two personality disorders, Heard's testimony over Depp's alleged abuse or the moment they appeared to lock eyes in the courtroom.
When proceedings pick back up again, Barkin is expected to testify on behalf of Heard's defence. The Animal Kingdom star earlier dated Depp during the production of 1998's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
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During Depp's libel trial against The Sun, which he lost because the judge ruled claims he was a 'wife-beater' to be 'substantially true', a statement from Barkin accused the actor of once throwing a bottle of wine across a hotel room.
Depp said, as per Reuters: "Untrue. I do not have an anger management problem."
Heard's sister Whitney Henriquez also testified in the earlier libel trial. As well as being mentioned during the course of the trial in other testimony, she's been on the witness list from the outset.
Henriquez once lived in one of Depp's penthouses in Los Angeles. In the past trial, she testified to seeing bruises on Depp's face while Heard was still in a relationship with her Rum Diary co-star.
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During Heard's testimony last week, she also described an incident where Depp allegedly took a swing at Henriquez when she tried to intervene in a fight between the couple back in 2015.
She said: "[Whitney's] back was to the staircase, and Johnny swings at her. And I swung at him.
"In all of my relationship to date with Johnny, I hadn't landed a blow. And I, for the first time, hit him - like, actually hit him. Square in the face. He didn't push my sister down the stairs."
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In a statement of confidence prior to the break, Heard's team said Depp's 'defamation claim is falling apart so rapidly that his counsel are turning from prosecutor to persecutor'.
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