Amber Heard Posts 'First Race Glow' After Madrid 10K

For the first time in months, Amber Heard has let the world back in — and what people are seeing appears to be a woman who has quietly, determinedly rebuilt her life. The actress, now 40, shared a series of photographs to Instagram after completing the KLM Norte Sur 10K race in Madrid on Sunday, 21st June, sparking an outpouring of warmth from followers who say the images show her thriving.

Dressed in a pink sports bra and matching shorts, Heard beamed at the camera with what she described simply as "First race glow." A second image, posted to her Stories rather than her main feed, showed her cradling her eldest daughter Oonagh, five, after crossing the finish line. "Nothing beats this feeling," she wrote across it.

It has been nearly three years since the defamation trial that made Amber Heard one of the most polarising figures in modern entertainment. In June 2022, a Virginia jury sided largely with Johnny Depp in his lawsuit over a 2018 Washington Post op-ed in which Heard described herself as a public figure representing domestic violence survivors. Though the piece never named Depp, his legal team successfully argued that readers understood the reference, and that her allegations had damaged his career. Heard was ordered to pay $10 million in compensatory damages — later reduced under Virginia law — and won $2 million in her own countersuit. The reputational toll, however, was far harder to quantify.

In the months that followed the verdict, Heard left the United States entirely, relocating to Spain with Oonagh — who was born via surrogate in April 2021. She spent time in Mallorca before settling in Madrid, where sources say she has built a slower, more private routine centred on her daughters and her own wellbeing. Reports have suggested she has used the name Martha Jane Cannary in her personal life since the move, though she has not commented publicly on this.

Running, it seems, has remained one of the constants she has carried into that new chapter. In a 2018 interview with SHAPE magazine, she explained her relationship with the sport in terms that feel even more resonant now.

The Madrid photos were accompanied by news that Heard's family has grown. On Mother's Day 2025, she announced the arrival of twins, Agnes and Ocean, though she has not publicly identified their father. She is now a mother of three — a detail that lends the race-day photographs an additional layer of quiet significance.

The response online has been notably different in tone from the years of backlash that followed the trial. Discussion threads on Reddit filled with messages of goodwill, with many users reflecting on what Heard has been through and expressing genuine pleasure at seeing her appear happy. "Love to see a woman thriving after the world tried to destroy her," one Redditor wrote. Another added: "People deserve to move on from their worst moments, and it's nice to see someone shed that weight and stress of life."

Heard has addressed the trial's impact directly in Silenced, a documentary that screened at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2025. In it, she spoke about the aftermath with a candour she had largely avoided since the verdict.

The post itself — her first to the Instagram feed since a Thanksgiving image in November — is modest by the standards of celebrity social media. No red carpets, no film projects, no carefully staged brand content. Just a woman finishing a 10K in a European city, holding her child, looking genuinely pleased with herself. For those who have followed Heard's story over the past several years through the celebrity news cycle, that simplicity feels deliberately, meaningfully chosen.

Whether the softening public mood represents a genuine shift in how her story is understood, or simply the passage of time doing its quiet work, remains to be seen. But if Amber Heard's Madrid morning is anything to go by, she appears to have stopped waiting to find out.