‘It got pretty hysterical’: Helena Bonham Carter says she ‘hates’ cancellation culture when she touches on Johnny Depp’s ‘excuse’ and says JK Rowling was ‘hounded’

‘It got pretty hysterical’: Helena Bonham Carter says she ‘hates’ cancellation culture when she touches on Johnny Depp’s ‘excuse’ and says JK Rowling was ‘hounded’

Helena Bonham Carter has spoken out on her hatred of cancel culture as she discussed the ‘witch hunt’ against fellow stars Johnny Depp and JK Rowling.

The Harry Potter actress, 56, claimed there would be ‘millions’ of people who could be cancelled if you ‘looked closely enough’ at their personal life.

When asked about the topic during a new interview with the Sunday Times, Helena said: ‘Do you ban a genius for their sexual practices? There would be millions of people who if you looked closely enough at their personal life you would disqualify them.

‘You can’t ban people. I hate cancel culture. It has become quite hysterical and there’s a kind of witch-hunt and a lack of understanding.’

Helena, who has worked alongside a host of the stars at the centre of the #MeToo movement including Harvey Weinstein and Woody Allen, declared that there is ‘no way back’ for some high profile celebrities, as she name checked Kevin Spacey.

Kevin continues to face legal issues involving sexual misconduct, and is currently facing four counts of sexual assault against three complainants in the United Kingdom, with a trial date set for June 2023.

However Helena claimed that her Sweeney Todd co-star Johnny Depp, 59, has been ‘completely vindicated’, since he was first accused of domestic abuse by his ex-wife Amber Heard.

Helena said that Johnny ‘certainly went through it’, as she referred to the highly-publicised libel trial with Heard, as he accused her of defaming him by labelling him a domestic abuser in a 2018 op-ed.

Johnny is the godfather to her children Billy Ray, 18, and Nell, 14, who she shares with her ex Tim Burton – the director of a series of films which star both Helena and Johnny.

Claiming that the allegations against Johnny didn’t quite ring true, she said: ‘There’s something quite old-fashioned about Johnny, with these manners.’

When asked if the case was the ‘MeToo pendulum’ swinging back, Helena said: ‘My view is that she got on that pendulum. 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.’

Helena also discussed the ‘hounding’ of JK Rowling, who has also been an influential star at the eye of a ‘cancel culture’ storm due to her views on female-only spaces.

Discussing the treatment of JK, which has ranged from trolling online to burning her books, Helena branded it: ‘horrendous and a load of b****cks.’

She said: ‘It’s been taken to the extreme, the judgmentalism of people. She’s allowed her opinion, particularly if she’s suffered abuse. Everybody carries their own history of trauma and forms their opinions from that trauma and you have to respect where people come from and their pain. You don’t all have to agree on everything — that would be insane and boring. She’s not meaning it aggressively, she’s just saying something out of her own experience.’

Helena did not criticise her Harry Potter co-stars – which include Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint – for speaking out against JK.

The Bellatrix Lestrange actress said she did not think the stars were ‘ungrateful’ after JK’s writing shot them into stratospheric stardom, but were protecting their own fan base and generation.

Helena’s latest interview comes after fellow actress Emma Thompson admitted she was ‘utterly blind’ to her ex-husband Kenneth Branagh’s affair with Helena and said she felt ‘unlovable’ after finding out.

The actress, 63, married Kenneth, 61, back in 1989 just two years after they met, but his affair with Helena ended their six-year marriage in 1995.

Helena is believed to have started an affair with Kenneth in 1994 while she played his love interest in his version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. They went on to have a five-year relationship.

Speaking to the New Yorker, Emma admitted she felt ‘humiliated’ by the affair and felt that she was ‘unlovable’ after being left devastated by Kenneth’s unfaithfulness.

She told the publication: ‘I was utterly, utterly blind to the fact that he had relationships with other women on set.

‘What I learned was how easy it is to be blinded by your own desire to deceive yourself.’

‘I was half alive. Any sense of being a lovable or worthy person had gone completely,’ she added.

Two years before Helena met Kenneth and their affair began, she had worked with Emma on 1992 romance drama film Howard’s End.

Since the affair, the pair have also worked together on the Harry Potter series, with Emma playing Professor Trelawney and Helena starring as Bellatrix.

Emma has previously admitted that she had long ‘forgiven’ Helena and channelled her feelings of betrayal into playing a wronged wife in hit film Love Actually.

Revealing how she recovered from the devastation, Emma said it was her now husband of 27 years Greg Wise who ‘picked up the pieces and put them back together’.

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