Amber Heard on being told coming out would ruin her career and why she doesn’t like labels
Amber Heard has opened up about the way people in the film industry reacted when she came out as bisexual.
“Everyone told me: ‘You cannot do this’…everyone said, ‘You’re throwing it all away. You can’t do this to your career.’”
In an interview with Allure, Heard said she was photographed holding hands with the woman she was dating, and knew she had a decision to make.
She said people senior to her in the movie industry pointed out how few actresses were out, and said it would be the end of her acting career.
Her reply? “I cannot do this any other way. Watch me. ”
Earlier this year, she spoke out about the effect coming out had had, and the industry’s “obsession” with the bisexual label.
Heard went on to voice her dislike of the LGBTQ acronym label.
“As we become more educated and expand the facts of our nature, we keep adding letters. It was a great shield, but now we’re stuck behind it,” she said.
“It’s so important to resist labels. I don’t care how many letters you add. At some point, it’s going to spell ‘WE ARE HUMAN.’ ”
“I’m a person. I like who I like… I didn’t come out. I was never in.”
She came out publicly at GLAAD’s 25th anniversary event in 2010, and has stated, “I don’t label myself one way or another—I have had successful relationships with men and now a woman. I love who I love; it’s the person that matters.”
Ezra Miller also recently spoke out about being warned against coming out as queer in Hollywood.
In the interview, she talked about the current media wave of sexual assault and harassment allegations, in relation to her own experience.
“Before the Grabber in Chief, before the reeling back that we collectively had as women, I had already had my own reeling back. I had already realized the roots of misogyny reach far deeper and are far more ubiquitous,” she said.
“I didn’t realize that until about a year and a half ago. I had been living with my head in the sand because I was comparing it to other places or to the past. I did not realize how far we have to go to be equal. [And by equal] I mean fair.”
Heard was married to Johnny Depp from 2015 to 2017, divorcing when she alleged that he was physically abusive towards her.
Many publications used biphobic rhetoric to victim-blame Heard, with the Sun saying Heard’s “bisexual tendencies,” and friendship with queer model Cara Delevingne contributed to the breakdown of their marriage.
Heard donated the $7 million divorce settlement to a domestic violence charity, and used her platform to speak out on the issue.
“History tends to favor those on the right side of it. Whether it’s civil rights in 1962 or suffrage in 1914 or gay rights in 2007. All of these debates seemed specific at the time, but if you pull back to the macro, there’s a trend: fairness,” Heard said in the interview.
“Equality shouldn’t be up for debate.”
