Amber Heard Spotted Smiling in Spain After Paying $1M Settlement to Johnny Depp
Amber Heard is carrying on with her life in Spain after putting a close to the legal saga with ex-husband Johnny Depp.
After news of the $1 million settlement being paid to Depp, 60, earlier this week — and the five charities he’ll donate the money to — Heard, 37, was photographed smiling while out in Madrid on Wednesday.
Heard relocated to Spain and now lives there with her 2-year-old daughter Oonagh Paige.
She is set to make her first major public appearance since the trial at Italy’s 69th Taormina Film Festival for the world premiere of her movie In the Fire on June 24.
In April, a source told PEOPLE that Heard “couldn’t wait to leave the U.S. with her daughter” after the Virginia defamation trial with Depp last summer. The source added that Heard “gets more privacy” in Spain.
“The trial was beyond stressful for her and she just wanted to start fresh out of the country,” said the source. “She is excited about working and filming again. She was exhausted and disappointed about the trial. She felt she was mistreated.”
“This is all behind her now, though,” the source added. “She has new energy and is focused on things that she loves.”
When she announced that she and Depp reached a settlement and called off their appeals in December, Heard said in a statement that it was a “very difficult decision” and it was “not an act of concession.”
“It’s important for me to say that I never chose this,” Heard wrote. “I defended my truth, 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 women are re-victimized 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,” she continued. “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.”
Heard said she was “exposed to a type of humiliation that I simply cannot re-live” during the live-televised trial and she “simply cannot go through that for a third time.”
She added at the time, “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.”
“… I will not be threatened, disheartened or dissuaded by what happened from speaking the truth. No one can and no one will take that from me. My voice forever remains the most valuable asset I have,” Heard said.
Depp attended the Cannes Film Festival last month, where his French film Jeanne du Barry opened the prestigious event. During a press conference, Depp was asked about returning to movies after the trial and whether he feels “boycotted by Hollywood.”
“Do I feel boycotted now? No, not at all. But I don’t feel boycotted by Hollywood because I don’t think about it. I don’t think about Hollywood. I don’t have much further need for Hollywood myself,” he told reporters.
He added, “I keep wondering about the word comeback because I didn’t go anywhere. As a matter of fact, I live about 45 minutes away. So yeah, maybe people stopped calling out of whatever their fear was at the time. But no, I didn’t go nowhere. I’ve been sitting around.”
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