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Two years after Johnny Depp launched a defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife Amber Heard, the Pirates of the Caribbean star has branded his life a “soap opera.”
Depp, 61, made the comment during an appearance at Spain’s San Sebastian International Film Festival where he was promoting a biopic based on the life of Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani.
“Each (character) has their story because I’m sure we can say that I’ve been through a number of things here and there,” Depp, who directed the film, said in footage shared by The Hollywood Reporter. “You know, I’m all right. I think we’ve all been through a number of things, ultimately. Maybe yours didn’t turn into a soap opera. I mean, televised, in fact.”
Depp added, “But we all experience and go through what we go through. And those things that we are able to live and remember and use, these are your stripes. You never forget them. So to see these people all on the, teetering on the verge of earning their stripes, desperate to speak but unable to … in a way.”
After losing a libel case against the U.K. Sun in 2020 (which called him a “wife-beater”), Depp sued Heard, 38, in Virginia for $50 million over a 2018 op-ed in which she claimed to be a survivor of domestic abuse. The Edward Scissorhands star claimed the article ruined his career and maintained she was the abuser in their relationship.
During the six-week trial in the spring of 2022, jurors and people watching at home online got a peek into the couple’s extravagant and sordid relationship.
At one point, Depp alleged that Heard or one of her pals “dropped a grumpy” in their bed after an argument erupted over his tardiness for her 30th birthday party. The actor claims he left their condo in downtown Los Angeles for another home in the Hollywood Hills after she became angry with him.
The next day, Depp was shown a pic sent by his housekeeper. “It was a photograph of our bed,” Depp testified. “And on my side of the bed was human fecal matter.”
He continued, “My initial response to that was … I laughed … It was so bizarre and so grotesque that I could only laugh.”
Later on, when speaking about the incident, “Amber Turd,” as Depp referred to her, “tried to blame it on the dogs” — Pistol and Boo.
“They’re teacup Yorkies. They weigh about 4 pounds each. The photograph that I saw — I lived with those dogs for many years. I picked up their funk. It was not the dogs.”
Elsewhere, during her testimony, Heard claimed that Depp attacked her multiple times including on their honeymoon.
“We were on this train and on the last night we were on the train, Johnny and I got in an argument about him being allowed to drink liquor,” Heard told her attorney Elaine Bredehoft. “Johnny slapped me across the face and … had me up against the wall … he was squeezing my neck against the railway car.”
Jurors eventually sided with Depp, finding Heard guilty of defamation and awarding the Finding Neverland star $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages. Heard’s counter-suit against Depp was also partially successful, as he was found guilty on one count of defamation through his former lawyer Adam Waldman.
Following the verdict, Depp said in a statement that the jury “gave me my life back.” Heard, meanwhile, said the judgment was a “setback” for other survivors of domestic violence.
A juror speaking to ABC News at the time said that “a lot of Amber’s story didn’t add up” and that “the majority of the jury felt she was the aggressor.”
After both parties appealed the verdicts, the pair agreed to a settlement in December 2022, with Depp’s camp saying that the deal included a $1 million payment from her to him which was donated to charity.
With his reputation cleared, Depp headed back to work, signing on to play King Louis XV opposite costar and director Maiwenn in Jeanne Du Barry and prepping his work on his second directorial effort, Modi – Three Days on the Wing of Madness, with Riccardo Scamarcio in the lead and Al Pacino co-starring.
Depp says the new movie reminds him of his early years as a struggling actor before he landed his big break playing undercover officer Tom Hanson on 21 Jump Street in 1987.
“There’s something beautiful to me about those days living in a tiny studio apartment just off Hollywood Boulevard in a dangerous neighbourhood. They were tough. They were rough, ugly; they were weird, all kinds of stuff, but they were beautiful,” Depp told reporters this week in Spain.
Just last year, Depp spoke about how he was blacklisted in Hollywood, dropped from a co-starring role in the popular Fantastic Beasts film franchise after Heard’s abuse claims. But he said he had moved past that.
“Of course, if you’re asked to resign from a film you’re doing because of something that is merely a bunch of vowels and consonants floating in the air, yeah, you feel boycotted,” Depp said at the Cannes Film Festival.
“Do I feel a boycott now? No, not at all. I don’t feel boycotted by Hollywood because I don’t think about Hollywood. I don’t have much further need for Hollywood myself.”