Actress Amber Heard felt she had no choice but to go public with allegations of domestic abuse during her divorce from Johnny Depp.
The Machete Kills star accused the Pirates of the Caribbean actor of committing physical and verbal abuse throughout their short one-year marriage when she filed for divorce in May, 2016. Depp vehemently denied the claims.
Coming forward with the allegations was a risky move for Heard and her rising career at the time, but she didn’t think twice about the decision, insisting it was her obligation as a celebrity to use her platform to make a positive impact.
“I don’t have to; I have to,” she emphasized to Allure about her choice to speak up about domestic violence. “If I didn’t have a platform, I would stand on my toes.
“I have a semifunctioning brain and a semifunctioning limbic system, and as a human being, it is incumbent on me to make the world a better place in any small, insignificant way I can. I’ve always tried to do the right thing. I used everything I was given (from the divorce for charity). I had to make it better for the next person.”
After the divorce was finalized in January (17), Amber donated the $7 million she was awarded from the split to officials at the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in a bid to combat violence against women.
However, in the wake of Hollywood’s ongoing sex abuse scandal, with movie heavyweights such as Harvey Weinstein and Louis C.K. having been accused of sexual misconduct, Heard admits she is still haunted by how prevalent abuse is in society.
“Our mothers and grandmothers worked to make an environment that was deceptively comfortable. I took it for granted,” she shared. “I was so wrong. I was so f**king wrong.”
“I didn’t realize that (misogyny was so bad) until about a year and a half ago,” Amber added, citing the time she filed for divorce from Depp. “I had been living with my head in the sand because I was comparing it to other places or to the past. I did not realize how far we have to go to be equal. (And by equal) I mean fair.”
