Amber Heard says she still 'loves' Johnny Depp© Getty Images

Amber Heard says she ‘absolutely’ still loves Johnny Depp

“I’m not a likeable victim,” the actress told Savannah Guthrie. “I’m not a perfect victim.”


JUNE 15, 2022 3:20 PM EDT

Amber Heard still has love for her ex-husband, Johnny Depp. Speaking to  TODAY  ’s   Savannah Guthrie  in an interview for NBC News, the Aquaman actress said, “Absolutely. I love him. I loved him with all my heart.”

“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 towards 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,” she added.

On June 1, a jury unanimously found that Amber had defamed Johnny and that she had acted with “actual malice.” The Pirates of the Caribbean star sued his former wife for defamation arising from an op-ed by Amber that was published in The Washington Post.

The Rum Diary actress told Savannah during their sit-down interview that her op-ed was not about her relationship with Johnny. She said, “What the op-ed was about was me loaning my voice to a bigger cultural conversation that we were having at the time.”

Amber noted that it was important for her to not “make it about him or to do anything like defame him. I had lawyers, teams of lawyers, review all the drafts of this.”

Amber also told Savannah that she is “not a likeable victim.” “I’m not a good victim, I get it,” she said. “I’m not a likeable victim. I’m not a perfect victim.”

After the verdict was announced earlier this month, the actress released a statement that read: “The disappointment I feel today is beyond words. I’m heartbroken that the mountain of evidence still was not enough to stand up to the disproportionate power, influence, and sway of my ex-husband.”

“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,” she continued.

Amber concluded her statement writing that she was “sad” that she lost this case, but “sadder still that I seem to have lost a right I thought I had as an American — to speak freely and openly.”