Amber Heard is ready to start a new chapter. The Aquaman actress announced that she's "made a very difficult decision" to settle the defamation case brought against her in Virginia by ex-husband Johnny Depp. "It is important for me to say I never chose this," Heard's message, posted to Instagram, began. "I defended my truth and in doing so my life as I knew it was destroyed." In her Instagram statement, Heard – who filed to appeal the verdict earlier this month – said the "vilification" she has faced on social media is an "amplified version of the ways in which women are re-victimised" when they come forward. "Now I finally have an opportunity to emancipate myself from something I attempted to leave over six years ago and on terms I can agree to," she continued. "I have made no admission. This is not an act of concession. There are no restrictions or gags with respect to my voice moving forward." "I make this decision having lost faith in the American legal system," she noted, "where my unprotected testimony served as entertainment and social media fodder."