Johnny Depp seems as if he’s on a redemption tour, though the actor himself told The Times in an interview published Sunday he isn’t launching a comeback because, “I didn’t go anywhere.”
Depp inevitably addressed his marriage and subsequent legal battle against ex-wife Amber Heard, at one point telling executive editor Jonathan Dean, “I was pre-MeToo. I was like a crash test dummy for MeToo. It was before Harvey Weinstein.”
Heard, who was married to Depp from February 2015 to January 2017, first levied accusations of abuse and assault against her ex-husband in 2016 after she filed for divorce. The New York Times published Ronan Farrow’s investigation into allegations against Weinstein in 2017.
Depp was asked about people in his life who testified against him, or offered commentary and evidence to support Heard’s claims. “I’ll tell you what hurts. There are people, and I’m thinking of three, who did me dirty. Those people were at my kids’ parties. Throwing them in the air. And, look, I understand people who could not stand up [for me], because the most frightening thing to them was making the right choice. I was pre-MeToo. I was like a crash test dummy for MeToo. It was before Harvey Weinstein.”
“And I sponged it, took it all in. And so I wanted from the hundreds of people I’ve met in that industry to see who was playing it safe,” he added.
Depp then sponged off a frequent politically conservative refrain: “Better go woke!”
In 2018 The Sun ran a piece about Heard’s allegations and the pair’s divorce and referred to Depp as a wife beater. The actor sued executive editor Dan Wooton and publisher News Group Newspapers for libel; he lost the case in 2020 and Justice Nicol concluded, “The great majority of alleged assaults of Ms. Heard by Mr. Depp have been proved.”
Depp sued Heard for libel in Fairfax County, Virginia, after she penned an article for the Washington Post titled “I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath.” Notably, this time around Depp did not sue the Post or its publisher, but only targeted his ex-wife (if he had sued the Post, he would have had to prove that he knew Heard’s claims were false when they were printed.)
In her article, Heard wrote about the abuse she grew up with and the warnings she received against speaking about the abuse she said she suffered as an adult. Heard did not mention Depp by name, or even that she was speaking of anyone in the entertainment industry.
When Heard filed for divorce she also requested a restraining order and $50,000 a month. The pair eventually reached a settlement and Depp agreed to pay Heard $7,000, which she said she would donate to charities.
Years later, the pair’s trial turned into a social media circus. One juror said “there wasn’t enough or any evidence that really supported what she was saying,” the Times pointed out, but contradicted themselves by adding, “they were both abusive to each other.” Heard became the butt of many jokes and horrific commentary.
“And what was abundantly clear during both trials was that Heard, a woman with far less money and significantly fewer fans than Depp, suffered more in both court and the court of public opinion than he did,” Dean noted. “I saw that at his London trial. The mainly female crowd outside the court stayed there for weeks to wave at Depp and scream death threats at Heard. She used to be his wife.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Depp also seemed to imply he married Heard because something about their dynamic reminded him of the relationship between his parents; the actor didn’t elaborate on his father’s treatment of his mother (he did say his dad and brother “would duke it out”), but noted his mother “was an awesome woman who revealed herself to be kind in the end, though she didn’t know how to treat anyone when I was growing up.”
Read the interview in full at The Times.
