Johnny Depp Doesn’t Have ‘Ill’ Feelings Towards Anyone After Trial Controversy
Johnny Depp’s high-profile trial with ex-wife Amber Heard exposed their relationship for the world to see a couple of years ago. But it also helped the actor build up some good will with the public after Heard accused him of domestic abuse. After the controversial trial, Depp recently reflected on the life-changing experience.
How Johnny Depp feels about the Amber Heard trial a couple of years later
Depp’s defamation lawsuit against Heard was much less about money than it was about clearing his name. Heard accused Depp of emotional and physical abuse back in 2016, which tarnished both the actor’s reputation and his career.
He lost a pivotal role in the Harry Potter film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them thanks to Heard’s claims. He’d also lost his starring role in a potential sixth Pirates of the Caribbean feature. In an interview with Rolling Stone, he once opened up about the emotional toll the allegations had taken on him.
“I kept trying to figure out what I’d done to deserve this. I’d tried being kind to everyone, helping everyone, being truthful to everyone.” Depp said. “The truth is most important to me. And all this still happened.”
In 2022, Depp won his defamation trial against Heard, and was initially awarded $15 million. However, he would settle with Heard out of court, with Heard only forking over $1 million to Depp which he donated to charity.
Recently, Depp revisited the trial’s affects on him in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
“Honestly, I can sit here this very second and think about all the hit pieces, and how everybody was against me, and yeah yeah yeah he is off the map … endless stuff,” Depp said. “I can remember it all. Went through it all. Some of it was not the most beautiful time, some of it was hilarious. Some of it was mad. The thing is, it simply just was, and it simply just is.”
But at the moment, Depp seems to be at peace with the past.
“So, for me, it happened,” he added. “I learned, man. Everything that we experience, whether you’re given a snow cone or walking your dog, you learn something somewhere along the way. So I don’t have any ill feelings toward anyone. I don’t have this great reserve of hatred, because hatred requires caring. Why carry that baggage?”
Johnny Depp’s words echoed Amber Heard’s
Ironically, Heard offered similar sentiments when she was asked about her feelings towards Depp. After the verdict, NBC News conducted in an interview with the Aquaman star, where she still maintained her side of the story. So much so that Heard claimed the defamation lawsuit simply made her hesitant to speak out against domestic violence.
“I’m scared that no matter what I do, no matter what I say, or how I say it — every step that I take will present another opportunity for this sort of — silencing, which is what, I guess, a defamation lawsuit is meant to do,” she said. “It’s meant to take your voice.”
However, Heard also claimed that when she first spoke about the abuse allegations, she wasn’t necessarily targeting Depp. She was speaking about the threats women had to face as a whole, and her intention wasn’t to ruin Depp’s career.
In the end, despite everything Heard claimed Depp did to her, she asserted she still cared about the Edward Scissorhands star.
“Absolutely. Absolutely. I love him. I loved him with all my heart,” she said. “And I tried the best I could to make a deeply broken relationship work. And I couldn’t.”
Like Depp, Heard also seemed to have made peace with the situation.
“I have no bad feelings or ill will toward him at all. I know that might be hard to understand or it might be really easy to understand. If you’ve just ever loved anyone, it should be easy,” she said.
