Actor Helena Bonham Carter shared her thoughts on cancel culture and how it has affected some of her controversial peers, including Johnny Depp and J.K. Rowling.
In an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine, Bonham Carter, 56, said she believes Depp has been "completely vindicated" after his six-week defamation trial against Amber Heard this year.
"I think he's fine now," Bonham Carter said, according to People. "Totally fine."
Depp sued Heard for $50 million after Heard wrote a 2018 op-ed for the Washington Post claiming she was a survivor of domestic abuse. She did not publicly name Depp but the actor claimed the allegations affected his ability to work.
Heard countersued, claiming Depp orchestrated a smear campaign against her, but in June the jury determined that Heard defamed Depp on all three counts. Depp was awarded $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages while Heard was awarded $2 million in compensatory damages.
When asked by The Sunday Times whether she thought Depp's recent case was the "pendulum of #MeToo swinging back," Bonham Carter responded that she believes 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," Bonham Carter said.
Elsewhere in the interview, Bonham Carter addressed the backlash that Rowling has faced in recent years after posting several controversial tweets that were widely deemed as "transphobic."
"It's horrendous, a load of bollocks. I think she 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 said of Rowling, seemingly referring to the "Harry Potter" author's past claims that she's a survivor of domestic abuse and sexual assault, according to People.
In one of her tweets last year, Rowling took issue with a headline that used the phrase "people who menstruate," instead of "women." The headline was inclusive of transgender people.
"'People who menstruate.' I'm sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?" Rowling tweeted.
She then defended her stance on the transgender community in a lengthy blog post, a link for which she shared on Twitter along with the words "TERF wars." TERF stands for trans-exclusionary radical feminist. Critics have given that title to the author.
"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," Bonham Carter, who starred in the "Harry Potter" films, said, People reported. "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."
Over the years, several "Harry Potter" stars, including Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint have spoken out against Rowling's remarks about the transgender community. When asked whether she felt her former costars were being "ungrateful," Bonham Carter disagreed.
"I won't say that. Personally, I feel they should let her have her opinions, but I think they're very aware of protecting their own fan base and their generation," she said, according to People. "It's hard. One thing with the fame game is that there's an etiquette that comes with it; I don't agree with talking about other famous people."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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