Amber Heard says she was "humiliated" during the multimillion-dollar US defamation trial with her former husband Johnny Depp.
The Aquaman actress, 36, explained she made the "very difficult decision" to settle the case with the Pirates of the Caribbean star, 59.
It's less than a month after she sought to appeal against the verdict in her legal battle against Johnny, arguing that it will have a "chilling" effect on women.
She was sued by Johnny over a 2018 article she wrote for The Washington Post about her experiences as a survivor of domestic abuse, which lawyers claim accused him of being an abuser. Johnny wasn't named in the article.
In June this year, a jury at Fairfax County Court returned a verdict in Mr Depp’s favour and he was awarded 10.3 million dollars (£8.43 million) in damages.
It was in the US that Amber claims she was "exposed to a type of humiliation that I simply cannot re-live" as she calls for a "re-trial with a new jury".
In a statement on Instagram, posted on Monday, she wrote: "After a great deal of deliberation I have made a very difficult decision to settle the defamation case brought against me by my ex-husband in Virginia.
"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-victimised when they come forward.
"Now I finally have an opportunity to emancipate myself from something I attempted to leave over six years ago and on terms I can agree to.
"I have made no admission. This is not an act of concession. There are no restrictions or gags with respect to my voice moving forward."
Ms Heard went on to praise the UK justice system, saying she had felt "vindicated" by the "robust, impartial and fair system" when she appeared to give evidence at Mr Depp’s 2020 lawsuit against News Group Newspapers Ltd.
"When I stood before a judge in the UK, I was vindicated by a robust, impartial and fair system, where I was protected from having to give the worst moments of my testimony in front of the world’s media, and where the court found that I was subjected to domestic and sexual violence," she said.
"In the US, however, I exhausted almost all my resources in advance of and during a trial in which I was subjected to a courtroom in which abundant, direct evidence that corroborated my testimony was excluded and in which popularity and power mattered more than reason and due process.
"In the interim I was exposed to a type of humiliation that I simply cannot re-live.
"Even if my US appeal is successful, the best outcome would be a re-trial where a new jury would have to consider the evidence again. I simply cannot go through that for a third time."
She added: "For too many years I have been caged in an arduous and expensive legal process, which has shown itself unable to protect me and my right to free speech.
"I cannot afford to risk an impossible bill – one that is not just financial, but also psychological, physical and emotional. Women shouldn’t have to face abuse or bankruptcy for speaking her truth, but unfortunately it is not uncommon."
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