Courtney Love just took a side in the Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard trial - here's why it's significant

As the trial draws to a close.

Johnny Depp Courtney Love

As the trial draws to a close.

The Johnny Depp and Amber Heard defamation trial is in its final week, following plenty of bizarre twists, including Heard firing her PR team and Donald Trump weighing in on the court case.

Trigger warning: contains graphic depiction of drug use. 

While most official witnesses have now given their testaments in court, in a surprise twist, Hole singer Courtney Love has shared a video on Instagram showing her support of the actor.

Sharing her own personal experiences with the Pirates of the Caribbean star, she detailed how, on a night out in 1995, he once performed life-saving CPR on her after she overdosed on drugs.

They were outside of Depp's nightclub The Viper Room when the overdose happened and the singer woke up to her chest being pumped.

While in the videos Love sides with Depp - detailing how he was an important figure in her child's life and has only ever been kind to her - the 57-year-old shared that she has sympathy for Heard, as she too has felt like "the most hated woman in the world" at times. (Many have blamed Love for the death of Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain via suicide in 1994).

She urged fans to "stop having fun with schadenfreude" - that is, taking pleasure from someone else's misfortune - with regard to the barrage of online hate Heard has faced over the course of the trial.

A photo posted by on

However, she also added: "But if you use a movement for your own personal gain, and you inhabit queer feminist intersectional spaces, and you abuse that moment, then I hope justice gets served, whatever it is."

Depp is currently suing Heard for $50 million over a 2018 article published in The Washington Post in which she calls him a "wife-beater." Heard is countersuing him for $100 million.

Speaking in support of Depp in the videos, Love details how he saved her life. "I don’t really wanna make judgments publicly, but I just want to tell you that Johnny gave me CPR in 1995 when I overdosed outside The Viper Room with Sal."

She's previously spoken about the incident with The Guardian, where she said she was "off [her] f-----g head" that night.

Deciding to enter the nightclub, she remembers passing out, coming too, and then being given CPR. Her daughter, Frances Bean, was just three years old at the time.

Continuing to share her story, Love said: "Johnny, when I was on crack and Frances was having to suffer through that with all these social workers, wrote her a four-page letter that she’s never showed me on her 13th birthday. He didn’t really know me."

Love with daughter, Frances Bean

Similarly, Depp always made an effort to make sure Frances and friends could see the Pirates of the Caribbean movies before they were released. Love even shares that the actor would send limos to her daughter's school to take them to the theatre.

Love shared: "He did it a bunch of times. He gave her her own seat with her name on it. I’ve never seen those Pirates movies, but she loved them. You know, she said to me when she was 13, "Mama, he saved my life." And she said it again."

In the 2006 Guardian article, Love also added: "I have nothing bad to say about Johnny Depp, never. I think he's very smart, he's a brilliant actor and he once saved my life."

Sharing that she doesn't want to do anything other than "show neutral support for a friend," the singer emphasised how she also never wants to bully, adding: "I’ve been bullied enough. I did not want to express my own bias, internalized misogyny."

Ally Head
Senior Health, Sustainability and Relationships Editor

Ally Head is Marie Claire UK's Senior Health, Sustainability, and Relationships Editor, nine-time marathoner, and Boston Qualifying runner. Day-to-day, she works across site strategy, features, and e-commerce, reporting on the latest health updates, writing the must-read health and wellness content, and rounding up the genuinely sustainable and squat-proof gym leggings worth *adding to basket*. She's won a BSME for her sustainability work, regularly hosts panels and presents for events like the Sustainability Awards, and saw nine million total impressions on the January 2023 Wellness Issue she oversaw. Follow Ally on Instagram for more or get in touch.