Amber Heard: The things I have been through are not going to stop my career

Mike Bedigan, PA Los Angeles Correspondent

Amber Heard says the things in her life she has “been through”, including her multimillion-dollar US lawsuit with ex-husband Johnny Depp, are “certainly not gonna stop my career”.

The Aquaman star said over time she had learned that she was “not in control of stories other people create” around her.

Last year, Depp sued Heard for defamation over a 2018 article she wrote in the Washington Post, which his lawyers said accused him of being an abuser.

Following a six-week trial in Fairfax County, Virginia, jurors returned a verdict in the actor’s favour.

In December, Heard said she had made the “very difficult decision” to reach a settlement in the case, which PA understands to be in the amount of $1 million.

She has recently appeared at the Taormina film festival in Sicily, to promote her first major film since the trial – In The Fire.

The festival is also due to screen Depp’s latest project, Jeanne Du Barry.

Speaking to US outlet Deadline after appearing at the festival, Heard addressed the lawsuit, but reiterated that she was at the festival to “support a movie”.

“A big thing I had to learn, (was) that I’m not in control of stories other people create around me,” she said.

“That’s something that probably I’ll appreciate as a blessing further down the line. Right now, I just kind of want to not have, you know, stones thrown at me so much.

“I’m here to support a movie. And that’s not something I can be sued for.”

Heard added that having had a “decades-long” career in the industry ought to have earned her respect for her “improbable” success.

“What I have been through, what I’ve lived through, doesn’t make my career at all,” she told Deadline.

“And it’s certainly not gonna stop my career.”

Set in 1899, In The Fire follows a 38-year-old American psychiatrist called to solve the case of a disturbed child in Columbia, following accusations that the child is the Devil.