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Almost two weeks after the jury found Amber Heard guilty of defaming her ex-husband Johnny Depp with her 2018 op-ed for the Washington Post, the actress has shared how she feels about him today. "Absolutely. I love him. I loved him with all my heart,” Heard revealed to Savannah Guthrie in an exclusive interview with NBC News. “I have no bad feelings or ill will toward him at all.”
“On the first day of the trial, you issued a statement,” Savannah noted. “And part of the statement said, ‘I still have love for Johnny.’” Heard responded saying she stands behind the sentiment. “I tried the best I could to make a deeply broken relationship work. And I couldn’t. I have no bad feelings or ill will toward him at all,” she revealed. Heard continued, “I know that might be hard to understand, or it might be really easy to understand. If you’ve just ever loved anyone, it should be easy.”
The conversation marked Heard's first TV interview since the lengthy high-profile defamation trial came to a close. The interview aired in two parts on Tuesday and Wednesday (June 14th and 15th) on TODAY and airs in a special on Dateline Friday, June 17th. The actor will speak about the trial which found that Heard's 2018 Washington Post opinion piece about surviving domestic abuse negatively impacted his career, though she didn't name Depp as the abuser.
“Legions of powerful men being canceled, losing their jobs,” Savannah said to Heard. “Did you want that to happen to Johnny Depp?” “Of course not,” Heard replied. “It wasn’t about him.”
When the unanimous verdict came in, Heard released a statement saying, "I'm even more disappointed with what this verdict means for other women. It is a setback. It sets back the clock to a time when a woman who spoke up and spoke out could be publicly shamed and humiliated. It sets back the idea that violence against women is to be taken seriously."