Johnny Depp: “I was a crash test dummy for #MeToo”

Johnny Depp has opened up on his highly publicised trial against former wife Amber Heard, in which he called himself a “crash test dummy for #MeToo” – see what else the actor had to say below.

Back in 2022, Depp won a defamation case against ex-wife Amber Heard over a 2018 op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post in which she alleged she was domestically abused by the actor. Two years prior, Depp lost a libel case against The Sun after it published an article that referred to him as a “wife beater” – claims Depp has always denied.

The situation led to Depp being dropped from the Fantastic Beasts franchise and being “boycotted” from Hollywood. The majority of his recent roles have been in European cinema, including his latest role as King Louis XV in Jeanne Du Barry, where he performed in French in 2023.

In a new interview with The Times, Depp has reflected on the legal battle, saying he has “no regrets” about how he approached his defence – for which the jury ruled that he had also defamed Heard during the trial.

During his chat with The Times, Depp shared that his lack of support from the public and industry following his divorce from Heard in 2016 – through which she had already alleged abuse – was because his situation was “pre-#MeToo”. “I was pre-#MeToo. I was like a crash test dummy for #MeToo. It was before Harvey Weinstein. And I sponged it, took it all in. And so I wanted from the hundreds of people I’ve met in that industry to see who was playing it safe. Better go woke!”

He went on to detail that he was ostracised and turned on by people close to him due to the public backlash of the situation: “I’ll tell you what hurts. There are people, and I’m thinking of three, who did me dirty. 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.”

As for why he decided to go through with a public trial, he explained: “Look, it had gone far enough. I knew I’d have to semi-eviscerate myself. Everyone was saying, ‘It’ll go away!’ But I can’t trust that. What will go away? The fiction pawned around the fucking 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. And my kids will have to live with it. Their kids. Kids that I’ve met in hospitals. So the night before the trial in Virginia I didn’t feel nervous. If I don’t have to memorize lines, if you’re just speaking the truth? Roll the dice.”

He continued: “Look, none of this was going to be easy, but I didn’t care. I thought, ‘I’ll fight until the bitter fucking end.’ And if I end up pumping gas? That’s all right. I’ve done that before.”

Regarding the entire ordeal, Depp had this to say: “I have no regrets about anything — because, truly, what can we do about last week’s dinner? Not a fucking thing.”

Depp is now set to make his Hollywood comeback, recently landing his first major casting since the trial ended. He is currently filming Day Drinker, where he will play a mysterious figure who meets Penélope Cruz’s cruise ship bartender, only for the two to find themselves embroiled in a criminal underworld.

The film is being directed by Marc Webb (The Amazing Spider-Man, (500) Days Of Summer) and will see Depp and Cruz reunited, after previously starring in Blow, Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Murder On The Orient Express together.

Last year, Depp directed and produced the biographical drama film Modì, Three Days on the Wing of Madness. 

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