Helena Bonham Carter has defended JK Rowling and Johnny Depp in a new interview.
The actress starred as Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter film franchise, which was based on the books by JK.
The author came under fire in 2020 for making “anti-trans” comments, after she took issue with the phrase “people who menstruate” in an article written for Devex.
Sharing the article on her Twitter feed, JK wrote: “‘People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?”
In a new interview with The Sunday Times, Helena defended JK from the backlash she received following her comments, saying: “It’s horrendous, a load of b******s. I think [Rowling] has been hounded.”
“It’s been taken to the extreme, the judgmentalism of people. She’s allowed her opinion, particularly if she’s suffered abuse.”
“Everybody carries their own history of trauma and forms their opinions from that trauma and you have to respect where people come from and their pain.”
“You don’t all have to agree on everything – that would be insane and boring. She’s not meaning it aggressively, she’s just saying something out of her own experience.”
The 56-year-old added: “If she hadn’t been the most phenomenal success, the reaction wouldn’t be so great. So I think there’s a lot of envy unfortunately and the need to tear people down that motors a lot of this cancelling. And schadenfreude.”
“You can’t ban people. I hate cancel culture. It has become quite hysterical and there’s a kind of witch hunt and a lack of understanding.”
In the same interview, Helena spoke about her close friend Johnny Depp’s recent libel battle against his ex-wife Amber Heard.
The actor launched a $50 million defamation lawsuit against the actress in 2019, after she wrote about being an alleged victim of domestic violence in an op-ed for the Washington Post.
While his name was excluded from the piece, Johnny’s legal team argued that the op-ed implied that he “perpetrated domestic violence against her.”
Amber countersued Johnny, asking for $100 million and claiming she suffered “rampant physical violence and abuse” at his hands.
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.
Amber was awarded $2 million in damages on one of her three defamation countersuit claims.
Helena claimed that the court verdict had vindicated Johnny, who is the godfather of her children – Billy Ray, 18, and Nell, 14.
She said: “Oh, I think he’s completely vindicated. I think he’s fine now. Totally fine.”
When asked if she thought the libel case was the “pendulum of #MeToo swinging back”, Helena replied: “My view is that [Heard] got on that pendulum.”
“That’s the problem with these things – that people will jump on the bandwagon because it’s the trend and to be the poster girl for it.”
