Rarely, Johnny Depp has spoken out about his relationship with Amber Heard and the world-wide scandal that followed their trial.
Although their relationship is thought to have started in late 2011 or early 2012, Depp and Heard first crossed paths in 2009 while working on The Rum Diary.
They became engaged in January 2014 and married in February 2015, just over a year later.
Although it wasn’t the end of the story, Depp and Heard’s marriage didn’t last long as they split up in 2016.
In 2018, Heard wrote an op-ed piece for the Washington Post claiming she was a victim of domestic abuse, which led to a protracted legal battle.
The article did not specifically mention the Pirates of the Caribbean star. But in 2019, Depp filed a defamation lawsuit against Heard, claiming that his ex-wife had made “categorically and demonstrably false” claims that he had “perpetrated domestic violence against her” (via The Independent).
Heard subsequently filed a $100 million countersuit against Depp, which increased the trial’s public attention.
Heard won $2 million after winning one of her three counterclaims against her ex, while Depp obtained $10.35 million in damages after a jury ultimately decided in favor of both of their lawsuits in 2022.
Some three years later, Depp has been speaking to The Sunday Times about his relationship with Heard.
“If you’re a sucker like I am, sometimes you look in a person’s eye and see some sadness, some lonely thing and you feel you can help that person,” the actor stated.
“But no good deed goes unpunished, because there are those who, when you try to love and help them, will start to give you an understanding of what that malaise, that perturbance was in their eyes. It manifests itself in other ways.
“And the interesting thing is that it is merely a sliver of my life I have chosen to explore.”
In his interview with The Sunday Times, the Pirates of the Caribbean star even mentioned the trial.
The 62-year-old said: “Look, it had gone far enough. I knew I’d have to semi-eviscerate myself. Everyone was saying, ‘It’ll go away!’ But I can’t trust that. What will go away? The fiction pawned around the f globe? No, it won’t.
“If I don’t try to represent the truth, it will be like I’ve actually committed the acts I am accused of. And my kids will have to live with it. Their kids. Kids that I’ve met in hospitals.
“So the night before the trial in Virginia, I didn’t feel nervous. If you don’t have to memorize lines, if you’re just speaking the truth? Roll the dice.
Depp claimed that he didn’t care that none of it “was going to be easy.”
“I’ll fight until the bitter f**king end.’ And if I end up pumping gas? That’s all right. I’ve done that before,” he added.
Depp continued by claiming that he served as the MeToo movement’s “crash test dummy.”
“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 said.