‘I’m really proud to be Brittany Higgins’: former Liberal staffer reveals why she didn’t change her name in new documentary

Brittany Higgins says she decided not to change her name when she got married in 2024 because she is proud to be Brittany Higgins, the former Liberal staffer has revealed in Silenced, a documentary about violence against women which opened the Sydney Film Festival. “When I got married I had this opportunity to change my name but I didn’t because I’m really proud to be Brittany Higgins,” she said in a highly emotional interview in the film. “Hopefully, this is just a footnote in my story and it’s not the headliner any more.” Higgins walked the red carpet on Wednesday night alongside Australian barrister Jennifer Robinson, who represented Amber Heard in a defamation case brought by her ex-husband Johnny Depp. Heard is also featured in the film, which is based on Robinson’s book How Many More Women? Since 2021, when Higgins told the media she had been raped by a colleague on a minister’s couch in Parliament House two years earlier, the name “Brittany Higgins” has rarely been out of the headlines. Her rape allegation against Bruce Lehrmann resulted in him going on trial in the ACT, but the trial was aborted due to juror misconduct. He denied the allegations. The ACT prosecutor Shane Drumgold dropped the case has after receiving medical advice regarding Higgins. Lehrmann later sued Network 10 and journalist Lisa Wilkinson for defamation over the story. He lost the case, and was found by the federal court to have, on the balance of probabilities, raped Higgins . …