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Kate Moss has never had a problem talking about Johnny Depp.
In the mid-1990s, the supermodel was asked by a British morning TV presenter how romantic her then-boyfriend was – and revealed that Depp liked to surprise her with parties and gifts.
“Oh, what gifts?” asked The Big Breakfast host Gaby Roslin.
“He gave me a diamond necklace hidden in his ass crack!” Moss chirped.
Years later, she remembered the jewelry again. “He said, ‘Come on, we’re going to the Russian Tea Room for dinner’ … as we walked out the door he said, ‘Kate, I’ve got something on my butt, you need to check, I don’t know what it is.’ ‘Would you look for me,'” she told Nick Knight’s Fashion Film. “I’ve only known him for three months! I slipped my hand under his pants and pulled out that damn Tiffany necklace. It was nice not to find a boil. That necklace is frigging awesome…”
It’s not likely a story Moss will repeat on Wednesday when she appears via video to testify for Depp in his defamation trial about his ex-wife Amber Heard.
Instead, Moss, 48, is supposed to explain how Depp once picked her up and carried her after she slipped down the stairs, according to sources.
Moss was drawn into the legal drama when Heard, 36, told the jury about a March 2015 fight in which she slapped Depp, 58, in the face for fear he would push her sister Whitney Henriquez down a flight of stairs.
The Aquaman actress said Henriquez was “in the line of fire… trying to get Johnny to stop” near a staircase, reminding her of an alleged incident between Moss and Depp.
“[Whitney’s] The back was to the stairs, and Johnny swings at them,” Heard testified. “I’m not hesitating, I’m not waiting — I just immediately think of Kate Moss and stairs.”
By mentioning the alleged misconduct, Heard inadvertently allowed Depp’s attorneys to summon the model as a witness.
A source familiar with the case told The Post that Moss will recount an incident that sounds more romantic than traumatic when she was “walking down a flight of stairs in Jamaica. She was wearing flip flops and slipped on the last two steps. Johnny caught her and took care of her.”
Depp and Moss were the iconic couple of the ’90s. Decadent and fleeting, their passionate romance — which spanned from 1994 to 1997 — took them from London to Hollywood to Cannes, sometimes leaving chaos in their wake.
The actor, who rose to fame on TV series ’21 Jump Street,’ was 31 and Moss was 20 when they met. “I knew from the moment we spoke that we were going to be together,” said the model.
Fashion writer and former Vanity Fair columnist George Wayne introduced her “at Cafe Tabac in the East Village” in 1994, he posted on Instagram. “She strolled into our favorite eatery at the time with Naomi… I took her hand and immediately led her to Johnny’s table in the middle of the restaurant. ‘Johnny, this is Kate – Kate, meet Johnny.’ When I did that, I didn’t expect them to demolish five-star hotel rooms around the world.”
Depp has claimed he and Moss had sex in every single one of the 63 rooms at the legendary Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood, and allegedly filled a tub with champagne for them to soak in at London’s Portobello Hotel.
But their passionate arguments – with rumors of screeching matches – were legendary.
In September 1994, police were called to the Upper East Side’s Mark Hotel, where they found Moss and a “possibly drunk” dork after an alleged fight in a vandalized presidential suite.
Depp blamed the mess on an armadillo, which he said was hiding in the closet. Such a creature was not found.
A criminal court judge dismissed the charges against Depp on condition that he stay out of trouble for six months. The actor paid The Mark more than $2,000 in damages.
Although the couple called it quits in 1997 after three years and an alleged engagement, they appeared briefly together at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1998, where Moss was reprimanded for wearing her bikini in the hallways of the iconic Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc. In response, she reportedly vandalized her hotel room and was barred from entering the place for life.
Maybe she was still seething about Depp taking responsibility for their breakup.
“I’ve never been so emotional about a woman,” Depp said in a 1998 interview with Hello magazine. “I was so stupid because we had so much for our relationship. I’m the one who has to take responsibility for what happened – I was difficult to deal with, I let my work get in the way and didn’t give it the attention I should have.
“The whole thing was crazy because I should never have gotten so upset about what people had to say about my work,” he said. “Sure I should take care of my films, but when I get home I should try to leave those things behind. I couldn’t and it was horrible to live with. Believe me, I’m a complete idiot sometimes.”
Moss, meanwhile, admitted she struggled for a long time after their split, telling Vanity Fair in 2012, “There’s nobody who’s ever really been able to take care of me. Johnny did for a while. I believed what he said. Like if I said, “What should I do?” he would tell me. And that’s what I missed when I left. I was really losing the measure of someone I could trust.
“Years of crying. Oh, the tears!” she added.
Despite the fact that they both married others, they remain close.
Moss has one daughter, 19-year-old model Lila, with publisher Jefferson Hack, and she was married to Kills musician Jamie Hince from 2011 to 2016. She has been dating photographer Graf Nikolai von Bismarck, 35, since 2015 and in January told Harper’s Bazaar magazine that being in love makes her “feel beautiful”.
After years of wild stories about her alcohol and drug use, the model told the magazine she’s given up going to clubs, adding, “I’m not a Hellraiser. But don’t let the bubble burst. I’m definitely a hell-raiser behind closed doors.”
Depp dated French singer Vanessa Paradis from 1998 to 2012 and they share two children, actress Lily-Rose, 22, and Jack, 20. He married Heard in 2015 and they divorced in 2018.
It’s not the first time Heard has mentioned Moss in court. In 2020, Depp was embroiled in a defamation lawsuit against British newspaper The Sun over an article that called him a “wife beater”. Heard admitted in court that she hit the actor because she feared he would attack her sister Whitney.
“I punched Johnny that day to defend my sister,” she said, referring to the March 2015 fight. Heard claimed her sister was at the top of a flight of stairs.
“I had heard that he had pushed a former girlfriend, I think it was Kate Moss, down the stairs. And that’s what I thought of at the moment and I reacted in her defense [Whitney].”
Depp lost the case after Judge Andrew Nicol ruled the Sun had proved the article to be “substantially true”.
During the Sun case, Depp’s former fiancee, Winona Ryder, filed a statement in his defense, saying, “I was absolutely shocked, confused and upset to hear the allegations against him.
“I really and honestly only know him as a really good man – an incredibly loving, extremely caring guy who has been so protective of me and the people he loves and I have felt so very, very safe with him. “
Meanwhile, in a statement to the court, Paradis said, “This is nothing to do with the real Johnny I know… This is so upsetting as he has helped so many people in his personal and professional life with kindness and generosity.”
Depp’s long-forgotten first wife, Lori Anne Allison, also told the Post that she stands by him.
“I’m sorry Johnny has to go through this,” Allison said. “He has such a huge heart and deserves happiness in life. He has never raised his hand or been violent towards me. I wish him the best and hope he gets back to doing what he loves soon.”
