Schitt’s Creek star apologises for Johnny Depp Halloween costume

Schitt’s Creek star Emily Hampshire has issued an apology to social media after she and a friend dressed up as Johnny Depp and Amber Heard for Halloween.

In a now-deleted post, Hampshire was seen dressed in a suit with drawn-on tattoos and facial hair, imitating Depp’s smolder and holding a bottle of wine.

Hampshire’s friend dressed in a white blouse with her hair pinned back, and pulled faces as though she was crying or in distress, pretending to be Depp’s ex-wife Heard.

In the most highly-publicised court case of 2022, the two actors accused each other of domestic abuse. 

After facing heavy backlash for the costume, Hampshire, who played motel clerk Stevie in Schitt’s Creek, deleted the photos and publicly apologised to those she had offended.

“I want to address what is one of the most thoughtless, insensitive, and ignorant things I’ve ever done,” she wrote.

“For Halloween, I stupidly thought it would be funny to dress as Johnny Depp and Amber Heard.

“I am deeply sorry and ashamed for putting something that awful out in the universe.

“Domestic abuse is never, ever funny. These are real issues with real people and I REALLY regret my actions.

“In the future, I will do better. I’m so sorry.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/CzHcZs9xw0w/

Some followers in the comments told Hampshire that she had nothing to worry about and that if people could dress up as serial killers for Halloween, they should be allowed to dress up as public figures like Heard and Depp.

Others couldn’t believe that no one told Hampshire that dressing up as two people at the centre of a domestic abuse case would be a bad idea.

After a weeks-long, fully-televised court case, a Virginia jury determined that Heard defamed Depp when she wrote a 2018 op-ed for the Washington Post about her experiences of domestic violence, awarding Depp with $10 million in damages.

Additionally, Heard was awarded $2 million in damages for her counterclaim, after the jury found that Depp had defamed Heard through his legal team.

Before this trial, Depp had lost a defamation case against The Sun in the UK, after it was determined by a judge that the tabloid’s claim that Depp was a “wife beater” was “substantially true”.

When the 2022 court case came to an end, Depp was heavily celebrated in the media and among die-hard fans, appearing in Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty show, playing guitar at a Jeff Beck gig, and starring in the 2022 film Jeanne du Barry.

Meanwhile, Heard has largely stayed out of the spotlight since the trial ended.

In a statement issued after the verdict, Heard said that she felt disappointment “beyond words.”

She wrote at the time: “I’m heartbroken that the mountain of evidence still was not enough to stand up to the disproportionate power, influence, and sway of my ex-husband.

“I’m even more disappointed with what this verdict means for other women. It is a setback. It sets back the clock to a time when a woman who spoke up and spoke up could be publicly shamed and humiliated.

“It sets back the idea that violence against women should be taken seriously.”