Amber Heard breaks her silence on the 'Aquaman 2' Mera controversy

• Amber Heard thanked fans for their "overwhelming support" of her "Aquaman" character Mera.
• Mera has a greatly reduced role in the franchise's latest film, "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom."

Amber Heard broke her silence surrounding her role in the "Aquaman" sequel on Instagram Wednesday with a short post thanking her fans for "the overwhelming support and love in Mera's AQ return."

"After all this time, Aquaman 2 made its splash (sorry, its too easy) Thank you to all of my fans for the overwhelming support and love in Mera's AQ return," she wrote. "Thank you so much. #aquaman."

It was Heard's first Instagram post since July and the first time she's addressed her role as Mera in the "Aquaman" sequel, "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom," in months.

Heard has been largely absent from the movie's press cycle, but she has been a topic of discussion — especially given that she has just 11 lines in the sequel.

Many had speculated that Heard's decreased role was due to her contentious legal battles with her ex-husband Johnny Depp. In March 2019, a Change.org petition was filed urging the producers of "Aquaman 2" to remove Heard from the film. It garnered more than 4.6 million signatures.

During Depp's 2022 defamation trial against Heard, Heard said she had to fight to remain in the film and that the studio "didn't want to include me in the film."

"I was given a script and then given new versions of the script that had taken away scenes that had action in it that depicted my character and another character — without giving any spoilers away — two characters fighting with one another," she said on the stand. 'They basically took a bunch out of my role. They just removed a bunch out."

In October, Variety released a report claiming Heard's role in "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" had been saved by her ex-boyfriend, Elon Musk. Musk, the outlet reported, sent a "scorched earth" letter to Warner Bros. "threatening to burn the house down" if she were to be removed from the production.

But director James Wan told Entertainment Weekly that he'd never planned on having Heard co-lead the sequel.

"I always pitched this to everyone from the get-go. The first Aquaman was Arthur and Mera's journey," he said. "The second movie was always going to be Arthur and Orm. So, the first was a romance action-adventure movie, the second one is a bromance action-adventure movie. We'll leave it at that."