Amber Heard responds to rumours she’s been ‘cut’ from Aquaman 2, as a petition to remove her reaches almost 5 million

The court case between Amber Heard and Johnny Depp dominated social media, news headlines and household conversations for six weeks while the trial ran in Virginia. The former Pirates of the Caribbean star sued his ex-wife for defamation linked to an op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post in 2018, entitled ‘I spoke up against sexual violence and faced our culture’s wrath’.

Depp brought the case against Heard for $50million and she counter-sued, claiming that statements made by his lawyer Adam Waldman on his behalf lost her work, for $100million. The jury were in unanimous agreement that Heard libelled her ex-husband by writing the opinion piece and that she did so knowing that it could have a negative impact on his career. In fact, the Aquaman star won just one of six claims that were being judged during the case.

Consequently, a petition to remove Heard from Aquaman 2 – where she plays the romantic lead opposite Jason Mamoa – has now reached 4.7million signatures at the time of writing.

“Amber Heard has been exposed as a domestic abuser by Johnny Depp. In his $50 million lawsuit, Johnny Depp describes many incidents of domestic abuse that he suffered at the hands of his (then) wife Amber Heard, including one incident where she punched him twice in the face and another where she shattered his finger with a vodka bottle, and his finger had to be surgically reattached. He will bear the scar from that for the rest of his life,” the webpage for the petition explains.

“As Amber Heard is a known and proven domestic abuser, Warner Brothers and DC Entertainment should and must remove Heard from their Aquaman 2 film project. They must not ignore the suffering of Heard’s victims, and must not glamorise a domestic abuser. 

“Men are victims of domestic abuse, just like women. This must be recognised, and action must be taken to prevent a known abuser from being celebrated within the entertainment industry.”

It ends with the call to action: “Do the right thing. Remove Amber Heard from Aquaman 2.”

Though much has been made of the petition on social media as well as across various TV and online news channels reporting on the case, Heard herself has now responded to the petition, and the swirling rumours that she has, in fact, already been cut from the film – due to premiere in 2023. 

A spokesperson for Heard spoke out about the rumours after celebrity gossip site Just Jared reported that her scenes were being re-filmed.  “Warner Bros. decided to recast Amber Heard‘s role after screen testing the movie,” it alleged. “They are going to be doing reshoots with Jason Momoa and Nicole Kidman.”

Seemingly slamming the rumours that the actor has been removed from the film, a spokesperson for the actor told TMZ: “The rumour mill continues as it has from Day One – inaccurate, insensitive, and slightly insane.”

Heard herself took part in an interview with NBC, which first aired in-part on Tuesday (14 June), and though she doesn’t reference Aquaman 2 directly in this first instalment, she does make it clear that she stands by her testimony: “To my dying day, I’ll stand by every word of my testimony.” 

“It’s a freedom to speak truth to power, and that’s all I spoke. I spoke it to power and I paid the price,” she added. 

Heard then referred to Depp’s defamation trial in the UK, which he lost, and said: “There was another trial that dealt with the same substantive issues and had even more evidence in. In fact, my evidence was largely kept out.” 

Warner Brothers have yet to release an official statement about the film, though many people online feel that, given the verdict, Heard should be dropped from the roster in the same way that Johnny Depp was immediately removed from his film projects when the allegations of abuse against him first came out.