Amber Heard fears Johnny Depp could sue her for defamation again, she told NBC’s Savannah Guthrie.
Ms Heard shared her concern in part two of her interview aired Wednesday morning on The Today Show.
“I’m scared that no matter what I do, no matter what I say or how I say it, every step I take will present another opportunity for this sort of silencing,” she said. “Which is what I guess a defamation lawsuit is meant to do, it’s meant to take your voice.”
Of the claims she made that sparked her legal battle with Mr Depp, she added: “I took for granted what I assumed was my right to speak.”
Ms Heard reiterated that The Washington Post op-ed at the heart of Mr Depp’s lawsuit against her was “not about Johnny”.
Asked why she wrote it more than two years after their divorce, she said: “Because the op-ed wasn’t about my relationship with Johnny.”
Pressed by Ms Guthrie, who called it “unmistakable”, Ms Heard said it was about “loaning my voice to a bigger cultural conversation we were having at the time”.
She went on to say she “absolutely” still loves her ex-husband.
“Absolutely. I love him. I loved him with all my heart,” she said. “I have no bad feelings or ill will toward him at all.”
“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.
“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 second instalment of Ms Heard’s interview came exactly two weeks after a jury found overwhelmingly in favour of Mr Depp in the couple’s defamation trial following six weeks of explosive testimony on their tumultuous relationship.
Mr Depp sued his ex-wife for defamation over a 2018 op-ed for The Washington Post where she described herself as a victim of domestic abuse and said she felt “the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out”.
The jury of seven determined Ms Heard defamed Mr Depp on all three counts in his suit. She was ordered to pay him $8.35m in damages.
In the interview aired Wednesday, Ms Guthrie referenced a text brought up at trial in which Mr Depp promised “global humiliation” for Ms Heard.
Asked whether she thinks Mr Depp succeeded, Ms Heard took a long pause.
“He promised it, I testified to this... I’m not a good victim, I get it. I’m not a likeable victim, I’m not a perfect victim,” she said. “But when I testified, I asked the jury to see me as human and hear his own words, which is a promise to do this. It feels as though he has.”
The NBC interview is set to air in full on Dateline on 17 June.
