Aussie feminist Tilly Lawless catches up with ‘kindred spirit’ Amber Heard on Coast

MEET Amber Heard’s Aussie gal pal — Bellingen-born feminist, writer, sex worker, avid reader and kindred spirit Tilly Lawless.

MEET Amber Heard’s Aussie gal pal — Bellingen-born feminist, writer, sex worker, avid reader and kindred spirit Tilly Lawless.

The young women have become firm friends since Lawless came to Heard’s attention in 2015 when she spearheaded the #facesofprostitution movement.

A horse lover and member of the LGBTQIA community, Lawless became involved in #facesofprostitution after the Mamamia website published an article that painted female sex workers as victims who needed to be ‘saved’.

“My activism is not my life, it is one aspect of it and I find it is something that is a part of my life rather than who I am,” Lawless said at the time.

Amber Heard and Tilly Lawless celebrate Amber's birthday at Moo Moo on the Gold Coast. Picture: Instagram.

Lawless travelled to the Coast to spend the afternoon with Heard at Palazzo Versace on April 18 last year after the actress appeared in Southport Magistrates Court with then-husband Johnny Depp to plead guilty to a charge of providing a false document to Customs

Lawless caught up with the Aquaman actress on the Coast again in April this year, joining Heard and her new beau, Elon Musk, for dinner at Moo Moo, in Broadbeach, to celebrate Heard’s 31st birthday.

Lawless wrote about their bond in a post to Instagram featuring a picture of her and Heard at Moo Moo.

Tilly Lawless on the rooftop of Heard’s penthouse at Palazzo Versace last year. Picture: Mike Batterham.

The picture was captioned: “Getting to know Amber — who I have admired for her openness about her sexuality, the fact that she was pretty much the only visible femme woman to me as I was growing up, her fortitude in the face of great trauma & a media witch hunt, & for using her platform to fight the good fight — has been life-affirming in so many ways, as it always is when you meet a kindred spirit. I am so grateful to have earned the mutual trust & respect of so many people in my life; & though you all know who you are, I don’t acknowledge the importance of your friendships to me nearly enough. You are the longstanding & the all-knowing that endure through my romances. Thank you.”

Lucie Bee and Tilly Lawless (right) featured on ABC TV show You Can't Ask That.

Lawless also shares insight into what drives her in the post, which was reposted and shared by Heard fansites around the world.

“I often get asked what my goals are in my activism/life/my ‘career’,” Lawless writes.

“Firstly, I feel a great obligation to battle stigma through telling my own truth transparently & unashamedly, & using the platform I am afforded & the privilege I have to speak about sex worker rights on a wider scale. ‘Success’ in career or life for a lot of people seems to be getting rich, or famous, or knowing the right people, becoming a CEO. But in my life ‘success’ is much simpler, I do not have much ambition & neither am I competitive.

“I want to have the trust & respect of those I trust & respect, whose opinions I value, knowing that I have friends who will pull me up when I do wrong, with no doubts about who we are to each other. I am whom I am because of the friends around me, & for me that is the only kind of ‘success’ that matters — that I lived my life with integrity & honesty & was respected by those I respected.”

Tilly Lawless and Amber Heard at Palazzo Versace in April last year. Picture Mike Batterham

Lawless answered questions about her work last year when she appeared in an episode of innovative ABC TV series You Can’t Ask That featuring a group of sex workers.

The show sees disadvantaged or marginalised groups of people answer questions by reaching off camera for a card with a written query from the public submitted anonymously via the internet

“There’s a big wage gap between men and women,” she said.

“The sex industry is one of the few places where women actually earn more than men.

“Until women are earning as much as men in every other industry, why wouldn’t we turn to this industry?”