CANNES, FRANCE: The Cannes Film Festival opened its 76th edition with the biggest and brightest stars, including the much-debated Johnny Depp, who made his red carpet return at Palais des Festivals on May 16, 2023. He was seen arriving at the French film festival ahead of the premiere of the Cannes Film Festival's opening film ‘Jeanne du Barry', which marks his first major role since his widely followed defamation trial with ex-wife Amber Heard.
Fans were spotted holding placards that read "Congrats, Johnny" and "We are sorry" with a heart, reports Reuters, as he was seen with his co-stars and the film’s director, Maïwenn. Now a day after the 'Jeanne du Barry' premiere in which he plays the role of King Louis XV, Depp told Associated Press, "When you hit the bottom, you hit the bottom, you hit the bottom, then you find the basement to the bottom." He further said, "When it all went down, confusion is a good word. Befuddled. Because it does almost reach the Bugs Bunny experience. You say to yourself: Is this my life? What happened?”
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Johnny Depp and Amber Heard defamation trial
This time in May 2022, Depp was seen in Virginia court after Heard, whom he married in a secret ceremony in their Los Angeles home in 2015, accused him of domestic violence. The trial revolved around a $50 million defamation lawsuit Depp filed against Heard in 2019 about a piece she wrote about domestic abuse in 2018. He was defamed by the online headline of the op-ed in The Washington Post that read, “I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change” where she referred to herself as “public figure representing domestic abuse," states Time. Heard countersued him for $100 million in damages, as per Fox News. However, the case came to an end after a seven-person jury unanimously ruled in favor of Depp. He was awarded $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages in his defamation suit, while Heard was given $2 million in compensatory damages, but $0 in punitive damages after the court found that Depp defamed Heard on one count, states NBC News.
On December 19, 2022, Heard announced in an Instagram post that she settled the defamation case. “It’s important for me to say that I never chose this. I defended my truth and in doing so my life as I knew it was destroyed. The vilification I have faced on social media is an amplified version of the ways in which women are re-victimized when they come forward."
'I’m not going to regret being taken down a strange road'
Talking about it, Depp told Associated Press, “I did notice that people actually opened their mouths about it. At that time, that was brave. Not for a moment will I regret anything unless I’ve done something horrible to someone, which I haven’t. I’m not going to regret being taken down a strange road for that period of time because I learned so much more about myself.”
Supporters of Heard were seen with the hashtag #CannesYouNot while they criticized the festival for welcoming men accused of misconduct and said they shouldn’t have invited Depp. Eve Barlow, a journalist and friend of Heard, wrote on Instagram, "If you support Cannes, you support predators," as she captioned the picture writing, "Cannes seem proud of their history supporting rapists and abusers." Prior to Depp's arrival Cannes director Thierry Fremaux commented, "I don’t know the image of Johnny Depp in the US. If Johnny Depp had been banned from acting in a film, or the film was banned, we wouldn’t be here talking about it.”