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Ever since the allegations leveled against Harvey Weinstein came to light last year, the news hasn't stopped coming with regards to sexual misconduct in the film industry. We have seen a range of famous actors be accused of multiple counts of assault and harassment, and victims finding the courage to speak up and bring the truth to light.

There was the #MeToo hashtag that allowed women across the world to share their stories and support each other, while the widely-publicised #TimesUp campaign sought to create real change with regards to how victims of sexual misconduct are treated.

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Jennifer Lawrence has often been asked about the movement and the situations women may find themselves in when trying to make it in Hollywood. This is partly because she's one of the most famous actresses in the world, but also because she was the victim of the 2014 photo leaks, in which nearly 500 private photos of celebrities (mostly women) were stolen from the cloud and posted online.

Lawrence recently opened up to Oprah Winfrey about having her sensitive photos leaked. "I have such a fear with my phone and my computer and electronics,” she revealed in the interview. "It's taking somebody's intellectual property but also my body. It was violating on a sexual level."

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Now, the conversation has returned for a variety of reasons. For one, Lawrence's latest film Red Sparrow deals directly with issues of gender inequality. In the movie, she lays a Russian ballerina-turned-spy who is forced to use her body as a weapon, seducing and manipulating a CIA agent for her bosses.

On top of this, there was a recent debate over a publicity photo in which Lawrence was seen wearing a Versace dress in the freezing cold, while her male co-stars wore winter clothing. The actress later weighed in to clear things up, saying that it was her choice and she found the backlash "offensive".

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This likely sparked the discussion point returning in a recent interview with CNN, in which she was asked about the mistreatment of women in Hollywood. Lawrence explained:

"When I hear the harrowing stories of Harvey Weinstein's victims, I don't feel right putting myself in that exact category. I was certainly mistreated. I was definitely treated in a way that now we would call abusive.

“I had to deal with being young and I had to put up with executives or higher-ups putting their hands on my legs and not feeling like I could say, ‘Please don’t do that’".

She then went on to point out that we need to change how we talk about victims of abusive behavior such as this, and believe the women who have the courage to come forward:

“97 per cent of sexual abuse allegations are true – there’s the three per cent that isn’t. I feel, over the past, we’ve focused on the three per cent and it’s been so easy to say, ‘Oh, she’s lying.’

"If we create a community where survivors can come forward and talk, then there’s going to be change and there’s going to be no way of going backwards.”

Speaking on a more personal level with regards to the 2014 hacks, Lawrence recently opened up about how the nude photos being posted online affected her relationships.

Content warning: This article includes an alleged account of sexual assault, which some may find distressing.

Amber Heard's lawyers have made new allegations against Johnny Depp, claiming that the actor "sexually assaulted" his ex-wife as well as physically abused her.

The defamation trial - in which jurors will decide whether Heard was being truthful when she claimed to have been a victim of domestic assault in a 2018 op-ed for the Washington Post - kicked off on Tuesday with explosive opening statements from both actors' legal teams, who appeared at Fairfax County Courthouse in Virginia.

Depp, 58, is suing his ex-wife for $50 million in damages, claiming that her allegations led to him being dropped from big-budget projects including The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and the Harry Potter prequel series Fantastic Beasts.

Heard, 35, countersued, asking for $100 million.

Lawyers described shocking details from their marriage, with both touching upon an apparently brutal altercation that took place while the couple was on a trip to Australia.

Per Rolling Stone, Heard's team raised the sexual assault allegations during their opening statement. The Aquaman actor's head attorney, Ben Rottenborn, described their Australian stay as "a three-day blackout in which he abused and sexually assaulted Amber."

"You will hear in the most graphic and horrifying terms about the [sexual] violence that she suffered. You’ll hear that straight from her," he added.

Another of Heard's lawyers, Elaine Bredehoft, gave a detailed account of what allegedly happened in Australia.

In the Twitter video below, Bredehoft recounts how Depp allegedly "penetrated" Heard "with a liquor bottle":

Bredehoft told the court:

"As you go through those three days of Australia, some pretty horrendous things happened to her. He rips off her nightgown. He has her jammed up against the bar.

"He has hurled bottles and bottles at her. He has dragged her across the floor on the broken bottles. He has punched her. He has kicked her.

"He has told her he's going to f****** kill her and he f****** hates her. He's pounding at her, pounding at her. And then, he penetrates her with a liquor bottle."

A spokesperson for Depp's legal team has since dismissed the sexual assault allegations as "fictitious".

In a statement to People they said: "These fictitious claims were never made at the onset of Amber’s allegations in 2016, and only advantageously surfaced years later once she was sued for defamation after noting in her op-ed that she was a victim of ‘sexual violence.'"

"Words are key in a defamation case and conveniently, this allegation only came after that. This follows a pattern of her elaborate, erroneous claims which have continued to change and evolve over time for the purpose of Hollywood shock value of which Amber has mastered and used to exploit a serious social movement," they added.

If you or anyone you know has suffered sexual assault, you can contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE.

Featured Image Credit: michael melia / Alamy