Despite standing by her allegations of abuse against Johnny Depp, Amber Heard insists she still loves her ex-husband.
The revelation comes from the second installment of Heard’s in-depth interview with Savannah Guthrie on NBC’s Today show. The first segment on Tuesday saw the Aquaman star describe seeing crowds of people waving signs calling for her death during the trial. On Wednesday, she again stood by the allegations of violence to which she testified to at trial—but said she still has romantic feelings for Depp.
“I love him,” Heard said when asked about her feelings toward the Pirates of the Caribbean star in the wake of the lawsuit, which Heard described as the most “horrible” experience of her life. “I loved him with all my heart, and I tried the best I could to make a deeply broken relationship work and I couldn’t. I have no bad feelings or ill will towards him at all. I know that might be hard to understand or it might be really easy to understand. If you’ve ever loved anyone, it should be easy.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Heard also used the high-profile interview to say that she remained fearful that Depp—with whom she shared a four-year relationship before splitting in 2016—might sue her again. “I’m scared that no matter what I do, no matter what I say or how I say it, every step that I take will present another opportunity for this sort of silencing, which is what I guess a defamation lawsuit is meant to do. It’s meant to take your voice.”
Guthrie asked Heard if she felt Depp’s sinister text warning of a “global humiliation” had come true. “I’m not a good victim, I get it,” Heard said. “I’m not a likeable victim, I’m not a perfect victim.” Previous excerpts from the interview showed Heard saying she didn’t blame the jurors who sided with Depp at trial.
Heard was ordered to pay Depp over $10 million after she lost her highly public legal battle in a Virginia court on June 1. (Depp lost an earlier case in the U.K. after The Sun newspaper called him a “wife beater.”) The latest trial centered around a 2018 Washington Post op-ed in which she described herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse,” though she did not name Depp in the piece. “The op-ed wasn’t about my relationship with Johnny,” Heard told Guthrie when asked about her motivation for writing the defamatory article. “What the op-ed was about was me loaning my voice to a bigger cultural conversation that we were having at the time,” Heard added, referring to the MeToo movement.
Guthrie also pressed the actor about testimony at the trial from a TMZ reporter that the outlet had been tipped off about where and when Heard would be visible in public with bruising on her face. “They certainly didn’t get tipped off by me,” Heard said. The actress also addressed the issue of a promise she made to donate $7 million to charity from her divorce settlement from Depp; at trial, it emerged the donation hadn’t been made despite Heard stating it had. “I made a pledge and that pledge is made over time by its nature,” Heard said, insisting she still plans to honor the pledge.
Asked about what she’ll do now, Heard said: “I get to be a mom like full-time, where I’m not having to juggle calls with lawyers.” Guthrie questioned how she would one day go about explaining what she’d been through to her 1-year-old daughter, Oonagh Paige Heard. “I think no matter what, it will mean something,” Heard answered. “I did the right thing. I did everything I could to stand up for myself and the truth.”
Heard’s interview will be shown in full on Friday night on Dateline (8 p.m. ET).
