Johnny Depp on Being MeToo’s ‘Crash Test Dummy,’ Friends Who ‘Did Me Dirty’ Amid Amber Heard Trials

While the larger #MeToo movement didn’t break out until October 2017, leading to a major reckoning across Hollywood, Depp was first hit with allegations that he’d abused ex-wife Amber Heard in 2016.

Those allegations would lead into denials and two extremely public trials, with fans falling strongly into one or the other’s camp. And some might argue that both of their careers took a massive hit from the reveals in court.

First, Depp filed suit against The Sun in 2018 after he was referred to as a “wife beater.” Shortly thereafter, he exited the Fantastic Beasts franchise, with Depp saying he was asked to resign.

This was followed by an even more publicly scrutinized suit in 2019 when he sued Heard herself for an op-ed in The Washington Post where she referred to herself as a “figure representing domestic abuse.”

That trial erupted in 2022, with the jury determining he was defamed and awarding him approximately $15 million in damages.

The trial was purportedly the reason Heard’s role in the Aquaman sequel was drastically reduced as shocking details from within their relationship — that painted both of them poorly — emerged and they were both found to have defamed the other.

“I knew I’d have to semi-eviscerate myself,” Depp told the Times about that trial, which he said “had gone far enough” in the court of public opinion.

“Everyone was saying, ‘It’ll go away!’ But I can’t trust that,” he explained. “What will go away? The fiction pawned around the f–king globe? No it won’t.”

“If I don’t try to represent the truth it will be like I’ve actually committed the acts I am accused of,” he continued. “And my kids will have to live with it. Their kids. Kids that I’ve met in hospitals.”

He said he wasn’t nervous before that trial, because “if you don’t have to memorize lines, if you’re just speaking the truth? Roll the dice.”

And he said he was ready to go all the way by this point. In 2022, he’d now endured six years of public opinion on his ex-wife’s allegations of abuse, with his career taking a big hit.

He said he’d survived already “all the hit pieces, the bulls–t.” At this point, he decided, “Look, none of this was going be easy, but I didn’t care. I thought, ‘I’ll fight until the bitter f–king end.’ And if I end up pumping gas? That’s all right. I’ve done that before.”

While Depp said he was willing to fight to the bitter end, he was a little surprised at some of the people who weren’t willing to get in there and fight alongside him.

“I’ll tell you what hurts. There are people, and I’m thinking of three, who did me dirty,” he told the Times. “Those people were at my kids’ parties. Throwing them in the air. And, look, I understand people who could not stand up [for me], because the most frightening thing to them was making the right choice.”

“I was pre-MeToo. I was like a crash test dummy for MeToo. It was before Harvey Weinstein,” Depp said. “And so I wanted from the hundreds of people I’ve met in that industry to see who was playing it safe.”

While he didn’t call out any of these friends by name, Depp did express his frustration at his longtime agent. “As weird as I am, certain things can be trusted,” he said. “And my loyalty is the last thing anybody could question.”

“I was with one agent for 30 years, but she spoke in court about how difficult I was,” he continued. “That’s death by confetti, these fake motherf–kers who lie to you, celebrate you, say all sorts of horror behind your back, yet keep the money — that confetti machine going — because what do they want? Dough.”

As for his relationship with Heard — the two were married for two years before their even longer legal battle — Depp mused, “what were my initial dealings with what we call ‘love’? Clearly obtuse.”

“And what that means is, if you’re a sucker like I am, sometimes you look in a person’s eye and see some sadness, some lonely thing and you feel you can help that person,” he said.

“But no good deed goes unpunished,” he added. “Because there are those who, when you try to love and help them, will start to give you an understanding of what that malaise, that perturbance was in their eyes.”

From there, he pivoted to talking about his parents’ relationship, with the interviewer admitting to not being entirely sure what Depp was getting at, but speculating he was making a comparison between the two relationships.

Speaking of his mother, he said, “She liked to escape from reality from time to time and learnt how to live in a miserable state. I was in dreadful fear of this woman as a child but, at the same time, I loved her.”

Elsewhere in the interview, he reflected on life in that home, saying, “I wouldn’t 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.”

“So I’m not surprised I allowed myself to experience something — in some little psychological sphere — to help understand what it was like between my parents. I had to understand how my father dealt with it.”

As a result of this self-reflection by Depp as to how he wound up in a relationship with Heard, and connecting it to his attempts to understand his own parents better, he determined “it would be dumb for me to carry any bitterness.”

“Eternal hatred? You want to put curses on someone? No,” he said. “I know who I am, what that was and, look, it was a learning experience.”

And he’s learned ultimately, despite nearly a decade of personal and professional difficulty now, to not live with regret. “I have no regrets about anything — because, truly, what can we do about last week’s dinner?” he asked. “Not a f–king thing.”

Instead, Depp is looking ahead at the hope of continuing his Hollywood return. Next up is a film he directed, Modi: Three Days on the Wign of Madness, about Italian artist Amedeo Modigliana due out next month. Then, he’s back on the big screen opposite Penélope Cruz in Day Drinker, due out next year.

“My comeback?” he pushes back in the interview. “Honestly? I didn’t go anywhere.” He then added, “If I actually had the chance to split I would never come back.”