Johnny Depp said being with Amber Heard was like being “in a relationship with my mother” and he would lock himself in the bathroom to escape her.

The Pirates of the Caribbean star told a US court his ex-wife, 35, would escalate from making “little digs” at him to “full-scale arguments” that could become violent.

“It was sort of a rapid fire, sort of endless parade of insults,” Mr Depp told the court in the suburbs of Washington DC.

The actor, 58, is suing Ms Heard, for damages of $50 million over an article she wrote for The Washington Post in 2018, in which she described herself as a domestic abuse survivor.

In the second day of testimony in the blockbuster trial, Mr Depp rebutted Ms Heard’s allegations and claimed that it was in fact his ex-wife who would become violent.