Amber Heard: Christine Blasey Ford’s Testimony ‘Triggered’ My PTSD

Last month, Johnny Depp finally broke his silence about his acrimonious split and subsequent divorce from Amber Heard. In an interview with GQ magazine he denied abusing Heard, and said the previous three years had “felt like a perverse situation that was inflicted on me,” and that he was “hurt” by her allegations.

Heard slammed Depp’s denials in British GQ as “entirely untrue” through her lawyers, and now Heard herself has hit back with an interview of her own in the UK’s The Sunday Times.

Although Heard, 32, does not directly address the allegations she made about Depp, or say his name, she comes close when she tells the paper, in response to a question about what she has learned in recent years: “I believe the truth is the only thing that’s sustainable. I just didn’t realize how much it would fucking hurt getting there. I don’t know where that finish line is, but I fight every single day, and every single day it gets better. And every single woman that comes up to me and says thank you reminds me of my instinct to believe that right always wins, ultimately, that a lie is not sustainable, injustice is not sustainable.”

Heard also tells The Sunday Times that she found herself “triggered” by the Kavanaugh hearing in September, in which Dr. Christine Blasey Ford accused then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.

Asked if Ford’s testimony revived memories of her own trauma, Heard replies: “The results of [trauma] are sneaky. They’re not as obvious as you think. I don’t hide under a table when I hear a loud bang, though that happens to certain people with PTSD. Trauma sneaks up on you in weird ways, where all of a sudden you find yourself in a puddle on the floor, crying while watching this play out live on Fox or CNN … and you wonder why you care so much. It’s not your trial, right? But it is. It is.”

Heard adds: “Every single woman I know watching that hearing was triggered. I don’t know a single woman who watched it and didn’t have their heart break. We are all Dr. Ford. And we know it.”

The Depp-Heard split was characterized by a series of graphic allegations on Heard's part, including claims of physical and verbal abuse and that Depp scrawled a series of disturbing messages in blood aimed at Heard over the walls of a rented villa he was occupying while shooting a Pirates of the Caribbean film. He was allegedly deranged by a combination of wine, ecstasy and jealousy at Heard’s co-star in another film, Billy Bob Thornton.

Court papers claim that Depp, who had badly cut his finger, dipped it in blue paint and employed a mixture of paint and blood to write phrases such as “Starring,” “Billy Bob,” and “Easy Amber” on the wall.

Doctors performed a skin graft to repair Depp’s damaged finger.

Heard said at the time, “During the entirety of our relationship, Johnny has been verbally and physically abusive to me… I endured excessive emotional, verbal, and physical abuse from Johnny, which has included angry, hostile, humiliating, and threatening assaults to me whenever I questioned his authority or disagreed with him.”

Depp and Heard eventually came to a settlement, with Heard donating the $7 million in settlement money to charity.