Amber Heard support letter released with signatures from Gloria Steinem and women’s rights groups after months of silence

A collective of doctors, professors, advocates against domestic violence and women’s rights activists have signed an open letter in support of Amber Heard.

The letter — which was released Wednesday morning — criticizes the harassment Heard has faced throughout, and since losing, her defamation suit against ex-husband and actor Johnny Depp for writing an op-ed where she identified herself as a domestic abuse survivor.

Signatories, which include women’s rights icon Gloria Steinem and the National Women’s Law Center, also denounced what they called the “rising misuse” of defamation lawsuits as a tactic to silence domestic and sexual-abuse survivors.

It marks the first time these groups have voiced support for Heard, five months after she lost the highly publicized lawsuit.

“In our opinion, the Depp v. Heard verdict and continued discourse around it indicate a fundamental misunderstanding of intimate partner and sexual violence and how survivors respond to it,” the letter said. “The damaging consequences of the spread of this misinformation are incalculable. We have grave concerns about the rising misuse of defamation suits to threaten and silence survivors.”

On Twitter, the letter has been publicized by signatories along with the hashtag #ExpertsforAmber.

Last month, Heard filed an appellate brief, listing grounds to appeal the court’s decision to award Depp $15 million in combined compensatory and punitive damages. (Heard successfully countersued and was awarded $2 million in compensatory damages, but no punitive damages.) Heard hired Philadelphia attorneys David L. Axelrod and Jay Ward Brown of Ballard Spahr to represent her in her appeal back in August.

» READ MORE: Amber Heard hires Philadelphia law firm to appeal Johnny Depp verdict

Ballard Spahr successfully defended The New York Times against former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s defamation case.

Ballard Spahr did not immediately return a request for comment.

The jury’s decision in June in favor of Depp — who lost a libel case two years ago against Heard that centered on claims he had physically abused her — served as legal vindication for the Pirates of the Caribbean star. Since the suit, Depp made an appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards, receiving mixed reviews. He signed a new deal with Dior.

Earlier this month, news leaked that he would be a featured guest in Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty Vol. 4 fashion show.

Heard has largely kept out of the public eye since the end of the trial, save for an interview with Savannah Guthrie on Dateline, but is slated to appear in 2023′s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.

A report from Bot Sentinel — which studies misinformation and online harassment on social media — said the fury Heard and her supporters faced online was “one of the worst cases of cyberbullying and cyberstalking by a group of Twitter accounts.”

Notably, Heard appeared to deactivate her Twitter account earlier this month account following billionaire Elon Musk’s takeover of the platform.

Notable groups that signed the open letter supporting Heard include the National Organization for Women, the National Women’s Law Center, Equality Now and the Women’s March Foundation.

As noted by NBC, following the court’s decision in June, activists called out groups involved in the #MeToo movement — including Time’s Up — for not coming to Heard’s defense. But those who did publicly support Heard faced intense backlash from Depp’s online supporters.

“What spilled out of the courtroom and into the media, including social media, was an abuser exerting control and manipulating the media and a loyal fan base to attack his victim on his behalf,” The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence said in a statement at the time. “The jury, who was not sequestered, could very well have been influenced by the well-paid and highly-targeted smear campaign in their decisions. But what we witnessed in those conversations was more alarming.”

The organization’s CEO Ruth Glenn spoke with TMZ at the time about the fierce backlash she and her group received on Twitter and beyond after it released its statement supporting Heard.

A spokesperson for the group behind Wednesday’s open letter told NBC that she believed individuals were scared to speak out because of what they had witnessed of the harassment faced by Heard’s vocal supporters.

Heard’s reps declined to comment on this story. Depp’s reps couldn’t be reached for comment.