Domestic violence is not a Halloween costume.

This story includes descriptions of domestic violence. 

Minutes after posting images of herself dressed as Johnny Depp, complete with drawn-on facial hair, tattoos and props directly linked to his defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard, actor Emily Hampshire hastily deleted her Halloween content.

Hampshire, best known for her role as Stevie Budd on Schitt's Creek, was posed next to a friend dressed as Heard. In pictures, they held a wine bottle, a fake poo and mocked Heard's crying face. "Happy Halloween," she captioned her carousel of images.

Unsurprisingly, Hampshire's comment section quickly filled with people calling her out. She deleted the images and posted an apology the following day.

"I want to address what is one of the most thoughtless, insensitive and ignorant things I've ever done," she began, explaining that she thought it would be "funny".

"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."

Last year, Depp, 60, took Heard, 37, to court over an essay she penned for the Washington Post in which she described herself as a "public figure representing domestic abuse". During the six-week trial, which was live-streamed, memified and consumed as entertainment by millions on the internet, both Depp and Heard testified that they were abused by the other during their relationship. A jury ultimately sided mostly with Depp.

(Depp lost another defamation case against UK tabloid The Sun in 2020, after a judge found that the paper's claim Depp was a "wife-beater" was "substantially true".)

Besides the fact that the costume is embarrassingly stale – the trial was wrapped up long before Halloween last year – it will always be in poor taste to make light of the trial which hinged on allegations of domestic violence.

She wasn't alone either. Across social media, other Depp and Heard costumes have gone viral. Last year, there were entire threads of people making fun of, almost exclusively, Heard. Earlier this week, US gymnast Katelyn Ohashi deleted images of herself as Heard's Aquaman character Mera pretending to strangle a man dressed as Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow. A Norweigan video game creator went viral on X (formally Twitter) for dressing as Depp, using makeup to give herself the look of black eyes and a bruised face.

Meanwhile, The Little Mermaid lead Halle Bailey and her boyfriend, rapper DDG, dressed as Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown. Houston is iconic. One of the greatest of all time. Bailey, alone as her, would've been a perfect homage.

But in 2003, Brown was charged with battery after allegedly hitting Houston. In his book, Brown explained that Houston "got in the way" while he was fighting a drug dealer and he "smacked her", expressing regret at the physical contact. In interviews before her death, Houston claimed she had been spat on during the relationship, and that Brown had been emotionally abusive.

After receiving backlash for their costume, Bailey tweeted that she "had so much fun dressing up as legends this year".

"Get off Twitter, go dress up, touch grass and have fun outside," she wrote to the critics.

In 2022, Megan Fox shared an Instagram post of her and Machine Gun Kelly dressed as Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee. Last year, the infamous 90s couple re-entered the zeitgeist on account of the Pam & Tommy miniseries, which aimed to 'reframe' the tale of Anderson. The problem was Anderson did not want the series to be made at all and reportedly felt exploited by its very existence. 

It was a typically edgy costume choice for Fox and MGK, but even a tiny bit of due diligence would've taught them that Lee spent six months in prison after pleading no contest to assaulting Anderson. Did they not know? Did they know, and consider the cultural cache more important?

Then there was Bella Thorne, emulating 

The thing is, it is just so easy not to do this. All of these people could dress as literally anything else. Even throwing a sheet over your head, cutting two holes for eyes and wandering around a party going "oooooh" is 100 times less pathetic than making a mockery of a crisis that quite literally kills. 

Cosplaying as a victim or perpetrator on one night in October is not funny or cute. It contributes to a culture that largely does not take domestic violence, especially violence against women, seriously enough. It turns survivors into the butt of the joke and is insulting or worse, re-traumatising.

Global UN figures state that 736 million women – which equates to almost one in three – have been subjected to physical or sexual intimate partner violence. Here in Australia, on average one women is killed per week.

The damage of using this grim reality as a costume is far scarier than Halloween ever could be.

If this has raised any issues for you, or if you just feel like you need to speak to someone, please call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service.

Feature image: Instagram @emilyhampshire.