It’s been over two years since Amber Heard filed for divorce from Johnny Depp, over one year since both parties finalized said divorce and nearly two months since his in-depth GQ interview with surprising allegations about their acrimonious, highly publicized split. Now, in a new interview with Glamour released on Tuesday, Heard is reframing the story being told and reclaiming any negative narrative being spun about her.
Today, Heard’s story feels very familiar and refreshingly candid; it’s a story women may identify with or, at minimum, empathize deeply with. Although Heard doesn’t name any names during her interview with Glamour, she addresses the root of the most discussed issue surrounding her divorce from Depp: abuse. Shortly after news of the couple’s split broke, Heard was granted a temporary restraining order against her ex due to alleged domestic violence.
"I guess you could say I had my own things to rebel against.” How did our January cover star @realamberheard go from breaking horses in Texas to breaking the rule that women in Hollywood should shut up and look pretty? By digging in her heels: https://t.co/ph1Z4PS0Ufpic.twitter.com/K4u0tIUECW
— Glamour (@glamourmag) November 27, 2018
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In 2017, following quite a bit of back-and-forth over details, Depp paid Heard a divorce settlement of $7 million — all of which she donated to the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles and the ACLU, with the latter focused on ending violence against women.
Depp has repeatedly and vehemently denied all allegations of abuse (despite pretty damning recorded evidence), even going so far as to suggest he was the real victim in the relationship.
“When a woman comes forward, she will be met with skepticism, hostility, and shame,” Heard told Glamour, adding, “All a man has to do is point to an incentive. He will. Or society will.”
Since the split, Heard has devoted much time to reclaiming her own narrative. It’s one of the main reasons she joined social media toward the end of 2016 — because she was tired of being the only one “not weighing in on the narrative of my life.”
For Heard, this goes hand-in-hand with advocating for other women and their rights, saying, “My job provides me with a platform. Silence is complacency.”
Heard’s activism stretches across a wide spectrum. On one end, she’s having six-hour brainstorming sessions with 2019 Nobel Peace Prize nominee and Rise founder Amanda Nguyen, who calls the actor “fired up.” On the other end, she’s appealing to conservative politicians like Republican Senator Jeff Flake to consider women’s rights in policy-making and other government decisions.
She isn’t shy about speaking up over the issues facing women in society and, specifically, the oft-patriarchal Hollywood system.
“We get paid less as women, and we end up spending more time on set because of hair and makeup demand,” Heard said, although she pointed out she was equitably compensated for her work as Mera in Aquaman. “I’m trying to elucidate a bigger point, which is that we’re working in an inherently flawed system.”
https://twitter.com/gaygadott/status/1064578061906124800
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In fact, it was the strong, self-sufficient spirit of Mera that inspired Heard to venture into superhero franchise territory.
While reading the script, Heard noticed Mera flinches when people refer to her as Aquawoman. “She says, ‘Hey, wait a second. I have my own name. My name is Mera,’” Heard told Glamour. “And I thought, That’s my kind of girl. I like her.”
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