Amber Heard has insisted the 2018 op-ed at the center of the defamation lawsuit with ex-husband Johnny Depp is “not about Johnny”.
Ms Heard said the article was actually about her and what happened to her ‘after she escaped my marriage’.
“The only one who talked about him ironically was Johnny,” she told the court.
Mr Depp is suing his ex-wife for defamation over the 2018 op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post where she describes herself as a “public figure representing domestic violence”.
the Pirates of the Caribbean The actor is not named in the article, which is titled “I spoke out against sexual violence – and faced the wrath of our culture. This must change”.
However, Mr Depp claims this falsely implies he is a domestic abuser – which he strongly denies – and has left him struggling to land roles in Hollywood. He’s suing for $50 million.
Ms Heard is fighting back for $100million, accusing Mr Depp of orchestrating a ‘smear campaign’ against her and describing her lawsuit as a continuation of ‘abuse and harassment’.
The Aquaman actress spoke Monday for what was her third day of testimony as the trial resumed in Fairfax, Va., after a week-long hiatus.
When asked what bad will or bad intentions she may have had against her ex-husband in publishing the op-ed, Ms Heard insisted she had none.
She said the article was about her experience after their marriage ended.
“It’s not about Johnny. The only one who thought it was about Johnny was Johnny,” she said.
“It’s about me. It’s about what happened to me after Johnny.
“It’s about what happened to me after I escaped my marriage.
“It’s about me and my life and what I went through once I moved out and got an TRO [temporary restraining order] and I went on with my life. It was about what happened to me afterwards.
In the article, Ms Heard wrote about what she called the “anger culture” that women face when coming forward with allegations of domestic abuse.
“Like many women, I had been harassed and sexually assaulted when I was in college. But I kept quiet – I didn’t expect the filing of complaints to do justice. And I don’t didn’t see myself as a victim,” she wrote.
“Then, two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic violence, and I felt the full force of our culture’s anger for women speaking out.”
Giving evidence last month, Mr Depp told jurors ‘it was like someone hit me in the back of the head with a 2×4’ when he read his editorial. ex-wife in 2018.
He claimed the article was “a hit piece” and was dropped from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise “two or three days after the publication of this editorial”.
On Monday, Ms Heard also denied wanting to include her ex-husband’s name in the article.
She told the court she agreed to publish the op-ed because she wanted to lend her voice to “a great cause”.
“I couldn’t wait to lend my voice to what I thought was a great cause,” she testified.
The article was published around the same time that Ms Heard was announced as an ambassador for the ACLU and she had pledged to donate her $7 million divorce settlement to the organization and a Los Angeles Children’s Hospital. How much of that amount was actually donated was questioned in court earlier in the trial.
The first draft of the article was written by the ACLU’s in-house counsel.
Pre-recorded testimony from Terence Dougherty, director of operations and general counsel for the ACLU, was heard earlier in the trial.
Mr Dougherty recalled concerns raised that the op-ed could impact Ms Heard’s non-disclosure agreement as part of her divorce.
He said Ms Heard’s lawyers had edited the draft to remove any reference to her marriage and divorce from Mr Depp.
Meanwhile, Ms Heard had wanted to “cleverly” reinsert sections referring to her temporary restraining order against her “then-husband”, according to a December 2018 email heard in court.
In the email, Ms. Heard writes that she’s okay with the final draft if that’s not possible.
In the end, the article that was eventually published in The Washington Post was “very different” from previous versions and “did not directly refer to Ms Heard’s relationship with Johnny Depp”, he testified.
The Independent Gt