The actor is back in the spotlight in the wake of his 2022 trial against Amber Heard.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”credit-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Black Han Sans|||on|||||” text_text_color=”#000000″ header_4_font=”|||on|||||” header_4_text_align=”center” text_orientation=”center” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]
Words by Grazia<\/strong><\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/06\/Screenshot-2025-06-24-at-11.32.54.png” alt=”Jennifer Aniston” title_text=”Screenshot 2025-06-24 at 11.32.54″ force_fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″] A divisive figure for almost ten years, Johnny Depp is the first to say the idea that he\u2019s been \u2018cancelled\u2019 is laughable. \u2018Honestly? I didn\u2019t go anywhere,\u2019 he said in a recent interview with The Times.<\/em> Not only is he not short of work, with his directorial effort Modi: Three Days on the Wing of Madness<\/em>, a biopic about the artist Amedeo Modigliani starring Stephen Graham and Al Pacino, out on 11 July, and his return to acting in Day Drinker<\/em> expected next year, but he still has an ardent following. Whether online or outside the courtroom, Depp\u2019s most loyal fans have never left his side, even if there\u2019s less of them than there were a decade ago.<\/p>\n Regardless of such, Depp will always be a controversial figure. In 2022, his court case against his ex-wife Amber Heard, in which he accused her of defamation for alleging that she was a victim of domestic abuse in an article for the Washington Post, <\/em>went beyond viral.\u00a0<\/p>\n The jury ruled in favour of Depp’s defamation claim, ruling her op-ed references to ‘sexual violence’ and ‘domestic abuse’ were false and defamed Depp with actual malice. However, the jury also ruled that Depp defamed Heard through his former lawyer, Adam Waldman, when he accused her of ‘roughing up’ Depp’s penthouse, the jury also said Waldman’s claim that Heard’s claims were a ‘sexual violence hoax’ and ‘abuse hoax’ were not defamatory. Depp was awarded $15 million in compensatory and punitive damages, while Heard was awarded $2million.<\/p>\n It\u2019s worth noting that Depp lost his libel case against The Sun<\/em> in 2020, where he was called a \u2018wife beater\u2019, with the judge ruling that the article was \u2018substantially true\u2019 and that 12 of the 14 alleged incidents of domestic abuse had been proved to the civil standard to have occurred<\/span> occurred. Needless to say, it was the second trial in 2022 that piqued people\u2019s interest and had a peak live stream audience of 3.5 million \u2013 and the one that led to an onslaught of misogynistic trolling targeted at Heard.<\/p>\n Now Depp\u2019s reputation exists in a liminal space between ruin and the idea that he has been woefully wronged. Naturally, it seems the actor identifies more with the latter. He has no regrets about the way the second trial played out either. \u2018It had gone far enough,\u2019 he explained. \u2018I knew I\u2019d have to semi-eviscerate myself. Everyone was saying, \u201cIt\u2019ll go away!\u201d But I can\u2019t trust that. What will go away? The fiction pawned around the f***ing globe? No it won\u2019t. If I don\u2019t try to represent the truth it will be like I\u2019ve actually committed the acts I am accused of. And my kids will have to live with it. Their kids. Kids that I\u2019ve met in hospitals. So the night before the trial in Virginia I didn\u2019t feel nervous. If you don\u2019t have to memorise lines, if you\u2019re just speaking the truth? Roll the dice.\u2019<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”custom-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_font=”Libre Bodoni|||on|||||” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#333333″ header_2_font_size=”40px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” global_colors_info=”{}”] Reflecting on his fateful relationship with Heard, the actor went as far as to suggest he had not loved Heard in a conventional way. The couple met on the set of The Rum Diary<\/em> in 2011 and were married in 2015, before splitting the following year under turbulent circumstances. Heard cited irreconcilable differences in a petition for divorce and filed a temporary restraining order against Depp amid allegations of domestic violence. The divorce was finalised in 2016 with Depp paying Heard $7 million in the divorce settlement.<\/p>\n When asked whether it was difficult to watch someone he was once in love with go through the toxic events of the trial, Depp replied, \u2018That I had been \u201cin love with\u201d, that\u2019s where we could start, to look at the roots of \u201cin love with\u201d.\u2019 He continued, \u2018Because with regards to how I was raised, I wouldn\u2019t say it was a house without love, but it was an intense love and I would not say that myself, or my siblings, or my pop and mom, experienced any great love or bliss.\u2019<\/p>\n He went on to explain that the somewhat dysfunctional dynamics in his home growing up, particularly between his parents, shaped his understanding of what love looked like. Speaking about his mother in relation to his marriage he said, \u2018I was in dreadful fear of this woman as a child but, at the same time, I loved her. So I\u2019m not surprised I allowed myself to experience something \u2013 in some little psychological sphere \u2013 to help understand what it was like between my parents.\u2019<\/p>\n It’s a curious interview and one that certainly put\u2019s Depp\u2019s head back above the parapet. He seems fully aware that he is not adored by the public en masse as he once was. \u2018I have no regrets about anything,\u2019 he doubled down, \u2018because, truly, what can we do about last week\u2019s dinner? Not a f***ing thing.\u2019<\/p>\n Perhaps his only regret is to do with the \u2018three people\u2019 who \u2018did him dirty\u2019 throughout the whole legal saga. Depp did not name them, but he revealed they are people who have been at his children\u2019s parties and worked with him for several years. Depp has two children, Lily-Rose, 26, who is also an actor and a model, and Jack, 23, with his ex-fianc\u00e9 Vanessa Paradis.<\/p>\n Instead of focusing too much on those lost relationships, though, Depp simply suggests he was a \u2018crash test dummy for Me Too\u2019 \u2013 arguably one of his more galling claims in the interview. He seems to think those who failed to speak out and defend him in court or in public were \u2018playing it safe\u2019 and going \u2018woke\u2019.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, a lack of empathy for Heard still persists in the culture at large. It goes without saying that it is not her on the cover of The Sunday Times<\/em> magazine, lifting the lid on her experiences of the trial and promoting her latest film. Her career has been almost entirely on pause since the trial, which is unsurprising given the response she faced on social media from those siding with Depp.<\/p>\n However, she too is making a \u2018comeback\u2019 this summer. In July, Heard is set to join the ensemble cast for Spirit of the People, a new play by Jeremy O. Harris that premieres at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Is it a coincidence that her return to the spotlight is on stage rather than the big or small screen? Or that she has not \u2013 at the time of writing \u2013 done much press to promote it? Who knows. \u00a0<\/p>\n The trial might have ended three years ago and been unfortunate for all involved, but hostility still exists on both sides. It\u2019s just Depp\u2019s voice, rather than Heard\u2019s, that is being given the megaphone.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ divider_position=”center” divider_weight=”2px” module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”0px||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text module_class=”credit-texts” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|||on|||||” text_orientation=”center” global_colors_info=”{}”] Photo: <\/b>IMAGO<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The actor said he doesn’t believe he was ‘cancelled’.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":11277,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"guestgrazia","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11276"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11289,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11276\/revisions\/11289"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}‘The night before the trial in Virginia I didn\u2019t feel nervous.’ \u2013 Johnny Depp<\/h2>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]