Amber Heard has blasted ex-husband Johnny Depp as a liar and insisted she stands by “every word” of her bombshell testimony — but conceded she regrets being so “horrible” during their “very, very toxic” marriage.
“To my dying day, I will stand by every word in my testimony,” Heard, 36, told the “Today” show’s Savannah Guthrie in an interview teaser Tuesday of the accusations that cost her $10.4 million for defamation.
She bluntly said that Depp lied in denying having hit her, while also insisting she was never the one who instigated violent fights in their “ugly” marriage.
“I never had to instigate it — I responded to it,” she insisted to Guthrie, saying that audio clips of their fights were edited and caught a victim of abuse whose life was “at risk.”
“When you’re living in violence and it becomes normal — as I testified to — you have to adapt,” she said of her own actions.
Still, she conceded, “I did do and say horrible, regrettable things throughout my relationship.
“I behaved in horrible, almost unrecognizable to myself, ways.
“I have so much regret,” she said, blaming it on “being pushed to the extent where I didn’t even know the difference between … right and wrong.”
She said the marriage was “ugly” — but also at times “very beautiful.”
“I have never felt more removed from my own humanity. I felt less than human,” she said.
“Every single day, I passed for three, four sometimes six city blocks lined with people holding signs saying, ‘Burn the witch,’ ‘Death to Amber,'” she said.
“After three-and-a-half weeks I took the stand and saw a courtroom packed full of Captain Jack Sparrow fans who are vocal, energized,” she said, referring to Depp’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” character.
That overwhelming swell of support for her ex ultimately lost her the case, she said.
“I think the vast majority of this trial was played out on social media. I think that this trial is an example of that gone haywire, gone amok.”
Asked if she thought the jury saw the online support, she said, “How could they not? I think even the most well-intentioned juror it would have been impossible to avoid this.”
She also repeated her lawyers’ claim that she lost because “really important pieces of evidence” were kept out of the case, evidence which helped her win a court battle in the UK.
She also gave backhanded praise to Depp’s now-famous attorneys.
“I will say his lawyers did certainly a better job of distracting the jury from the real issues,” she said.
Still, she mocked them for suggesting that her testimony had just been her latest acting role.
“Says the lawyer for the man who convinced the world he had scissors for fingers,” she said, referring to Depp’s role as Edward Scissorhands.
“I had listened to weeks of testimony insinuating that — or saying quite directly — that I’m a terrible actress.
“So I’m a bit confused how I could be both,” she said, sarcastically.
Still, she admitted that the wild testimony that led to her brutal courtroom loss also painted her and her superstar ex in the worst possible light.
“I would not blame the average person for looking at this and how it’s been covered and not think that it is Hollywood brats at their worst,” she conceded to Savannah Guthrie.
“But what people don’t understand is it’s actually so much bigger than that,” she stressed, saying it was about “our First Amendment right to speak.”
“My understanding of what that means is not just the freedom to speak — it’s a freedom to speak truth to power,” she said.
“The truth is the word. And that’s all I spoke.
“I spoke it to power — and I paid the price,” she said.
Her comments came on the second day of footage from a “wide-ranging sitdown” leading to an hour-long “Dateline” special Friday night at 8 p.m. ET.
On Monday, clips showed her also saying that she was not surprised that the Virginia jury ruled against her.
“How could they not come to that conclusion? They had sat in those seats and heard over three weeks of nonstop relentless testimony from paid employees and — towards the end of the trial — randos,” Heard told Savannah Guthrie with a nervous chuckle.
“I don’t blame them. I actually understand — he’s a beloved character, and people feel they know him. He’s a fantastic actor,” she said of her ex.
She insisted the trial was so one-sided it was impossible for the jury not to be dazzled by Depp and also reach a conclusion just on the facts.
“How could they, after listening to three and a half weeks of testimony about how I was a non-credible person, not to believe a word that came out of my mouth?” she asked.
Amber also decried the “hate and vitriol” she has received online while her ex was widely praised and embraced by the public.
“I don’t care what one thinks about me or what judgments you want to make about what happened in the privacy of my own home and my marriage behind closed doors,” she told Guthrie.
“I don’t presume the average person should know those things, and so I don’t take it personally.
“But even somebody who is sure I’m deserving of all this hate and vitriol, even if you think that I’m lying, you still couldn’t look me in the eye and tell me that you think on social media there’s been a fair representation.
“You cannot tell me that you think that this has been fair.”
Depp won his bombshell defamation lawsuit after seven Fairfax jurors ruled in his favor that a Washington Post op-ed Heard wrote about becoming a “public figure representing domestic abuse” had sullied his reputation and damaged his career.
Heard’s lawyer, Elaine Bredehoft, blamed the legal loss on Depp’s team’s approach to “demonize Amber and suppress the evidence.”
Heard’s team also lashed out at her ex-husband for taking to TikTok and crowing about the widespread support he has received.
“As Johnny Depp says he’s ‘moving forward,’ women’s rights are moving backward,” a spokesperson for Heard said in a statement.
“The verdict’s message to victims of domestic violence is … be afraid to stand up and speak out.”
The Washington Post has since added a detailed editor’s note to Heard’s op-ed to highlight how it was ruled defamatory.