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Helena Bonham Carter Defends Johnny Depp And JK Rowling In Controversial Interview

Helena Bonham Carter has angered fans by defending JK Rowling and Johnny Depp. 
Credit: Alamy

Helena Bonham Carter has angered fans by defending both Johnny Depp and ‘Harry Potter’ author JK Rowling.

The Fight Club actress, 56, starred in four Harry Potter films between 2007 and 2011, as Lord Voldemort’s ‘last, best lieutenant’, Bellatrix Lestrange. 

While she and Depp go way back, starring in a number of Tim Burton-directed films together including Corpse Bride (2005), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) and Alice in Wonderland (2010).

Depp and Rowling have both been highly controversial public figures in recent years. 

Find out how Helena Bonham Carter’s dogs helped her get over Tim Burton ‘heartbreak’…

Rowling has been accused of being transphobic, while Depp faced allegations of domestic abuse during an extremely high-profile defamation trial with ex-wife Amber Heard.

Despite the pair hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons, Bonham Carter has spoken out in defence of them both.

In an interview with The Times, the actress said that Depp ‘certainly went through it’, while branding criticism of Rowling ‘absolute b***ocks’. 

The Crown star accused Heard of having ‘got on that pendulum’ of the MeToo movement.

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Bonham Carter said: “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.”

She believes that Depp has now been ‘completely vindicated’ and is ‘totally fine’.

Discussing whether Rowling – who sometimes writes novels under the alias of Robert Galbraith – deserves to be cancelled, Bonham Carter said: “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 went on to say that ‘everybody carries their own history of trauma and forms their opinions from that trauma’, noting that people should ‘respect where people come from and their pain’.

JK Rowling
Helena Bonham Carter has angered fans by defending both Johnny Depp and JK Rowling. Credit: Alamy

The King’s Speech actress said everyone can’t agree on everything, as that would just be ‘insane and boring’.

She thinks that the ‘The Ink Black Heart’ author’s comments weren’t meant aggressively, but just ‘saying something out of her own experience’.

She added: “If she hadn’t been the most phenomenal success, the reaction wouldn’t be so great.

“So I think there’s a lot of envy unfortunately and the need to tear people down that motors a lot of this cancelling. And schadenfreude.”

On cancel culture in general, Bonham Carter said that there would be ‘millions of people who if you looked closely enough at their personal life you would disqualify them’.

She added: “You can’t ban people. I hate cancel culture. It has become quite hysterical and there’s a kind of witchhunt and a lack of understanding.”

Bonham Carter also disagrees with fellow Harry Potter stars who have publicly addressed Rowling’s controversy – saying she doesn’t ‘agree with talking about other famous people’.

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Since her interview with The Times, Bonham Carter has herself been criticised on social media. 

One person wrote on Twitter: “Dear Helena Bonham Carter, I love you but could you just go back to hibernating please.”

Another said: “Helena Bonham Carter I am extremely disappointed.”

A third added: “How ignorant must one be to insinuate that survivors speak out against their abusers to be a poster for anything?

“It’s sad and harmful.”

While another person sarcastically added: “Very brave of her to speak up after years of silence while Rowling was pilloried.

“Chooses to speak out now the tide has most definitely turned on this malevolent ideology.”

Some defended Bonham Carter’s opinions though, as one person wrote: “It takes a maverick to defend someone against bullies.”

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Written by Cal Gaunt

Cal is a former content editor at IGV who specialised in writing trending and entertainment news. He previously worked as a news reporter at the Lancashire Telegraph and earned an NCTJ in Sports Journalism.