Actress Helena Bonham Carter supports Johnny Depp and J.K. Rowling
Helena Bonham Carter has defended her former workmates, including J.K. Rowling and Johnny Depp.
In the film adaptations of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, Carter played the villainous Bellatrix Lestrange.
She and Depp have co-starred in seven movies, five of which were directed by her ex-husband Tim Burton.
The LGBT+ community and allies have labelled Rowling transphobic for her views on transgender rights, which have made her a divisive figure in recent years. The author has strongly rejected any transphobia.
Bonham Carter commented, in a recent interview with The Times, “It’s horrendous, a load of bs. I think [Rowling] has been hounded. It’s been taken to the extreme, the judgmentalism of people. She’s allowed her opinion, particularly if she’s suffered abuse.
Bonham Carter commented, in a recent interview with The Times, “It’s horrendous, a load of bs. I think [Rowling] has been hounded. It’s been taken to the extreme, the judgmentalism of people. She’s allowed her opinion, particularly if she’s suffered abuse. “Everybody carries their own history of trauma and forms their opinions from that trauma and you have to respect where people come from and their pain. You don’t all have to agree on everything – that would be insane and boring. She’s not meaning it aggressively, she’s just saying something out of her own experience.”
Meanwhile, Depp’s high-profile legal battle with ex-wife Amber Heard began earlier this year.
The Pirates of the Caribbean actor claimed that Heard’s 2018 opinion piece in the Washington Post about domestic violence was defamatory and filed a lawsuit against her. Depp stated that the article made it seem like he assaulted her during their marriage.
After determining that Heard had defamed Depp, the jury awarded Depp $10 million (£8 million) in compensatory damages and $5 million (£3 million) in punitive penalties. Heard’s counterclaim that one of Depp’s lawyers libelled her by calling the abuse claims against her client a “hoax” was also upheld by the jury. Heard plans to file an appeal of the verdict.
Depp is the godfather of Bonham Carter’s two children, 18-year-old Billy Ray and 14-year-old Nell. In an interview with The New York Times, Bonham Carter said the verdict proved Depp’s innocence.
“Oh, I think he’s completely vindicated,” she stated. “I think he’s fine now. Totally fine.”
When asked if the libel case was the “pendulum of #MeToo swinging back,” Bonham Carter said, “My view is that [Heard] got on that pendulum. That’s the problem with these things – that people will jump on the bandwagon because it’s the trend and to be the poster girl for it.”
Previous rulings in favour of The Sun have shown that the paper’s description of Depp as a “wife-beater” was “substantially truthful” in British courts.