Lily-Rose addresses silence over Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial

Young actor and model was harrassed for not publicly supporting her father

Thursday 17 November 2022 07:54 GMT

Watch live as Johnny Depp's trial against Amber Heard continues

Your support helps us to tell the story

This election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.

The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.

Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.

Lily-Rose Depp has addressed her silence over Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s high-profile defamation trial.

In May, her father was embroiled in a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against his ex-wife Heard, in which he sued her for allegedly implying he abused her in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed.

Amid the six-week Virginia trial, Depp received aggressive messages from Johnny’s fans, calling on her to vocally support her father.

However, she stayed silent and has remained so ever since.

Now, in her new December/January cover story with Elle, Depp defended her privacy, saying: “When it’s something that’s so private and so personal that all of a sudden becomes not so personal… I feel really entitled to my secret garden of thoughts.

“I also think that I’m not here to answer for anybody, and I feel like for a lot of my career, people have really wanted to define me by the men in my life, whether that’s my family members or my boyfriends, whatever.”

She added: “And I’m really ready to be defined for the things that I put out there.”

Depp is the eldest child of Johnny, whom he shares with ex-partner Vanessa Paradis. They also share 20-year-old son Jack.

Johnny and Paradis dated for 14 years, beginning in 1998. Shortly after, he began dating Heard, who he went on to marry three years later in 2015.

In 2016, Heard filed for divorce, which was finalised a year later in 2017.

During the May trial, nearly every detail of their tumultuous relationship was exposed to the world.

Depp went on to win the trial, with the jury finding that Heard had defamed him on all three counts. He was awarded $10m (£8m) in compensatory damages and $5m (£4m) in punitive damage.