Amber Heard has responded to claims she “quit Hollywood” after her infamous defamation trial with her ex-husband Johnny Depp.
Last month, The Daily Mail’s Alison Boshoff alleged: “I can reveal that Heard has quit Hollywood and quietly relocated to Spain with her young daughter Oonagh.”
According to the journalist, the actress’ friend said: “She’s bilingual in Spanish and is happy there, raising her daughter away from all the noise.”
The friend reportedly told the publication: “I don’t think she is in any hurry to return to work or to Hollywood, but she will probably come back when the time is right, for the right project.”
Last July, Amber sold her home in Yucca Valley, California for $1.1 million; she has since moved to Madrid with her two-year-old daughter.
In a video shared to TikTok, Amber is seen speaking Spanish to reporters, telling them: “I love Spain so much.”
When asked if she plans to stay in Spain for long, the Aquaman actress replied: “I hope so. I love living here.”
When asked whether she has any film projects in the pipeline, Amber responded: “Oh, yes. I keep moving forward. That’s life.”
The news of the actress’ emigration to Spain came nearly one year after a jury of five men and two women found her guilty of defaming her ex-husband Johnny Depp in an op-ed for the Washington Post – which was published in December 2018.
Johnny had launched a $50 million defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife in 2019, after she wrote about being an alleged victim of domestic violence in the op-ed.
Following a six-week trial and 13 hours of deliberations, the jury sided with Depp and awarded him $10 million in compensatory damages, and a further $5 million in punitive damages.
However, Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Penney Azcarate reduced the punitive damages to $350,000, which is the State of Virginia’s legal limit, resulting in total damages of $10.4 million awarded to Johnny.
At the end of last year, Amber appealed for a new defamation trial, but later decided to settle the case.
She wrote on Instagram at the time: “After a great deal of deliberation I have made a very difficult decision to settle the defamation case brought against me by my ex-husband in Virginia.”
“It’s important for me to say that I never chose this. I defended my truth and in doing so my life as I knew it was destroyed. The vilification I have faced on social media is an amplified version of the ways in which women are re-victimised when they come forward,” Amber continued at the time.
“Now I finally have an opportunity to emancipate myself from something I attempted to leave over six years ago and on terms I can agree to. I have made no admission. This is not an act of concession. There are no restrictions or gags with respect to my voice moving forward.”
“Even if my US appeal is successful, the best outcome would be a re-trial where a new jury would have to consider the evidence again. I simply cannot go through that for a third time.”
“For too many years I have been caged in an arduous and expensive legal process, which has shown itself unable to protect me and my right to free speech.”
Amber continued: “I make this decision having lost faith in the American legal system, where my unprotected testimony served as entertainment and social media fodder.”
“When I stood before a judge in the UK, I was vindicated by a robust, impartial and fair system, where I was protected from having to give the worst moments of my testimony in front of the world’s media, and where the court found that I was subjected to domestic and sexual violence.”
“In the US, however, I exhausted almost all my resources in advance of and during a trial in which I was subjected to a courtroom in which abundant, direct evidence that corroborated my testimony was excluded and in which popularity and power mattered more than reason and due process,” she continued.
“In the interim I was exposed to a type of humiliation that I simply cannot re-live. I simply cannot go through that for a third time.”
Amber went on to say that the US legal process “has shown itself unable to protect me and my right to free speech.”
“I cannot afford to risk an impossible bill – one that is not just financial, but also psychological, physical and emotional. Women shouldn’t have to face abuse or bankruptcy for speaking her truth, but unfortunately it is not uncommon.”
The actress also said that she is “choosing the freedom to dedicate my time to the work that helped me heal after my divorce.”
“I will not be threatened, disheartened or dissuaded by what happened from speaking the truth. No one can and no one will take that from me. My voice forever remains the most valuable asset I have,” Amber concluded her statement.
During the six-week long defamation trial earlier this year, Amber detailed multiple incidents of alleged abuse, and told the court that “violence became normal” towards the end of their relationship.
However, Johnny testified that he never hit his ex-wife, and claimed that she was the abuser in their relationship.
In court, the 58-year-old said the allegations that he was a “drunken, cocaine-fueled menace who beat women” have cost him “everything”.
Johnny and Amber first met in 2009 on the set of the film The Rum Diary, and were married in February 2015; Their divorce was finalised two years later.
