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Amber Heard on divorcing Johnny Depp: ‘I felt our culture’s wrath for women who speak out’

  • Actress was told she’d never work in Hollywood again. She changed her phone number weekly because of death threats, and could barely leave home
  • Domestic abuse victims need more protection, she says, and hails the #MeToo movement and the election of more women to the US Congress

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Amber Heard and Johnny Depp arrive at the Palm Springs International Film Festival awards gala in January 2016, months before their acrimonious divorce. Photo: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP
USA TODAY

Actress Amber Heard, the ex-wife of Johnny Depp who accused the actor of beating her up, posted a column in The Washington Post this week lamenting the consequences she paid for speaking out and urging the United States Congress to reauthorise the Violence Against Women Act.

Two years ago, she wrote, she “became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out”.

Heard, 32, was told she’d never work in Hollywood again. Her role in a movie was recast. The company that hired her for a two-year gig as the face of a global fashion brand dropped her. There were doubts about whether she would keep her role as Mera in Justice League and the just-released Aquaman, although in the end she did.
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She had to change her phone number weekly because of death threats. For months, she rarely left home, and when she did she was pursued by camera drones and photographers on foot, on motorcycles and in cars. Tabloids posted mean pictures of her, she recounted.

She was on trial in the court of public opinion, with little control over how people were judging her, she said.

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Amber Heard in a scene from Aquaman. Her continuing in the role was in question after her divorce from Johnny Depp. Photo: Jasin Boland/Warner Bros. Pictures/AP
Amber Heard in a scene from Aquaman. Her continuing in the role was in question after her divorce from Johnny Depp. Photo: Jasin Boland/Warner Bros. Pictures/AP
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