The verdict is in: Johnny Depp has won his defamation case against actress and ex-wife Amber Heard, who had accused him of multiple counts of domestic and sexual abuse that she graphically described in court over several days.
Despite her emotional testimony and the other evidence she brought to the court — including photographs and voice recordings and eyewitness statements — the jury decided that she had proved none of her accusations against Depp, and awarded him $15 million in damages for her alleged “defamation” of him. Not that he needs the money; his net worth is likely somewhere between $75 and $150 million, depending on which source you believe. (This result is a far cry from what happened the first time Depp brought Heard’s alleged defamation to court, when a UK judge ruled in 2020 that Depp was in fact guilty of the vast majority of the accusations Heard brought against him.)
The verdict must be nice for Depp, but the fact is that he had already handily won this case in the court of public opinion where, as Amanda Marcotte put it in Salon, “Depp’s toxic supporters, through sheer belligerence, have willed their false narrative into the public understanding of the case.”
For proof of this all you have to do it take a quick visit to YouTube or TikTok, where videos mercilessly mocking Heard have sprung up like mushrooms in a bed of bullshit. Her emotional testimony is transformed into comedy for the masses through “recreations” of her accusations and through artfully edited clips featuring out-of-context moments from her time on the stand, sometimes set to music. At times it seems — and must have seemed to her — that the whole weight of the internet was pressing down on her.
Watch a few of these videos and the video sites’ algorithms will fill your recommendations with more from what seems an endless supply. If you’re feeling righteous, you can choose videos focusing on moments of high drama in the courtroom: “BUSTED! Amber Heard’s Personal Diary Reveals Her Shocking Lies” and “[Depp Lawyer] Camille Vasquez shutting down Amber’s lies for 13 minutes straight.” Or you can search out lighter fare, including one now notorious video presenting cats in costumes “recreating” Heard’s stories of abuse.
It’s what a Guardian writer called “Trial by TikTok.”
Of course, these videos are only funny if you believe — as Depp’s lawyers want you to — that Heard is lying about every single accusation of abuse; if you have even the slightest sympathy for Heard they are crude and cruel attacks on an abuse survivor for going public with her story. Is it funny if a woman is hit so hard she falls to the floor? If a man chokes her and spits in her face? If she is sexually assaulted with a bottle? (You can find a full accounting of her allegations in this post from “Skepchick” Rebecca Watson.)
This court case has opened her up to harassment and death threats as well — including one, she told the court, from someone who promised to put her one-year-old daughter in a microwave.
Despite all of the allegations against Depp he managed to come across to many as an amiable, avuncular fellow doing his best to weather a host of false accusations from his “crazy” ex.
And that’s just what Depp wanted his audience to believe — that Heard was a lying harpy and he was a put-upon truth teller and general good guy. In a text from 2016 presented in court he told a friend that Heard was
begging for total global humiliation … She’s gonna get it … I have no mercy, no fear and not an ounce of emotion, or what I once thought was love, for this gold-digging, low level, dime a dozen, mushy, pointless dangling overused flappy fish market. … I’m so fucking happy she wants to go fight this out!!! She will hit the wall hard!!! … And I cannot wait to have this waste of a cum guzzler out of my life!!!
Depp apparently writes a lot of texts like these, regarding them as examples of his “irreverent and abstract humor,” as he told the court about another text in which he declared Heard a “witch” and suggested he would like to “burn her.” He continued: “Let’s drown her before we burn her. I will fuck her burnt corpse afterwards to make sure she’s dead.” In yet another text he referred to Heard as “the slippery whore that I donated my jizz to for a while.”
You can buy this last slogan on a tshirt, which tells you something about the battle for public opinion in this case.
“Total global humiliation” is a good summary of what Heard has faced — and is likely to face for many years in the future. The attacks on her have somehow been even worse than the attacks on practically every other woman who has faced this sort of opprobrium from the Great Internet Lady Harassment machine — from Gamergate on.
Some are happy to dismiss the harassment as no big deal, since (to them) Heard is just a big fat liar anyway, and didn’t she sometimes hit him too? But I can only imagine what all this looks like to any woman now contemplating bringing a suit against an abuser. Will they be mocked as a “crazy liar” on TikTok? Will their allegations be turned into “edgy” entertainment for a vast online audience? Will people threaten to microwave their children?
#MeToo may never recover from this.
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#MeToo, at least in the form of its official non-profit Time’s Up, basically hung Heard out to dry. So no, this will probably not have any impact on it.
I didn’t follow this trial. I don’t think it will end the #metoo movement, because the public has a short memory, in general.
I was sickened by all the cruelty towards Heard in social media. I’ve noticed that many feminists have been harassed off of YouTube, while the most grotesque misogyny is allowed to stay. I know much of it is due to the users themselves, flagging videos they don’t like.
@Alan Robertshaw: I know you like raccoons. One of them waltzed in thru my front door last night…the door wasn’t fully closed, and Mr. Raccoon simply pushed it open. Mr. Dormousing_it shouted at the critter, and threw a throw pillow at it. He said the sight of the door swinging open, scared him nearly to death.
DEPP – “I’ll smack the ugly c*** around before I let her iin” This and nearly all the evidence against Depp was brushed off and ignored while Amber’s was magnified and condemned without context. Boys will be boys!! If she had said anything equal to his texts, would people excuse her and say she was driven to it?? Nah
This is bad for women here. It shows the very different attitude toward women and what qualifies as abuse in USA from the UK. It shows the incel misogyny and Men Rights sexism is winning the culture war. The general public that makes up our jury pools will require women to be fortunate enough to get their assault or abuse on video. And even then, they are so cynical toward women that they will accept the arguments of “she deserved it”, ‘she drove him to it”, she was asking for it”. Proof can just be explained away because, WOMAN. I’m sickened. I’m scared for women here. Go read the evidence against him that caused him to lose in UK. That is years of an abuse cycle fueled by drug and alcohol binges with admissions, apologies, and even more abuse. Thats domestic violence.
I’m ok calling the jury in this case unreasonable and I’m not sure if they did reach their verdict honestly. I have 3 qualms.
1. They were sloppy enough that they didn’t finish their decision making in full. When they first returned with a verdict they didn’t have an amount awarded to anyone despite that being an issue that they needed to decide.
2. The disparity in the amount rewarded when they both were found liable for defamation.
3. For the life of me I don’t see how you can coherently find that both Depp and Heard were defamed such that the case(s) clear the legal standard at play. If you find that Heard defamed Depp you are saying she *knew* her DV claims were false OR didn’t care if they were true or not because actual malice has to be shown. This means not only do you think she was lying on the stand and in the op ed but many, many, many pieces of evidence (i.e. photos, dairy entries, friends’ accounts) were manipulated and/or faked by her (or others). Conversely, to find that Depp’s lawyer defamed Heard for saying she claims of DV were a hoax you have to think *he* knew or didn’t care at all that she wasn’t lying and/or the other evidence was not altered in anyway.
It’s one thing to think Heard wasn’t a victim of DV because she was the aggressor (I don’t think this) but that is different from thinking Heard *knew* she wasn’t a victim of DV or didn’t care about the truth of her statement.
I’m not even going to comment on this.
@ michael
I think it’s perfectly reasonable to disagree with the jury’s conclusions. I’m not sure though there’s any evidence that they didn’t approach their task conscientiously or that the confusion over the forms is powerful evidence that they were dumb, to quote a commentator elsewhere.
Like I say, I avoid commenting on the merits; everyone has their own opinion on that; but to address your qualms:
1) I wasn’t unduly surprised by the confusion over the forms. The judge gave a slightly inconsistent direction. As we commented on at the time.
https://twitter.com/HouseChambers/status/1530261725244710919
The judge correctly directed that if they found for Depp on any one count then they should move on to damages for that count. But then said if they found for Depp on all the counts then they should leave that blank. We think she meant to say against Depp on all the counts.
2) There are two aspects to be determined in a civil claim; liability and quantum. So the jury found liability established in both claim and part of the counterclaim. They then have to consider how much the claim is worth. There are two elements to damages also. General damages; that is to say an award for the intangible non financial hurt. And special damages. That’s your actual financial loss. (In Virginia they called those punitive damages and compensatory damages). The jury seemed to think Depp was entitled to both elements. So they awarded $5m for the punitive damages. Although those are capped at $350K hence the judge reducing them. But they have also given Depp £10M to compensate for loss of earnings. That’s obviously less than he asked for. But that to me suggests that they did apply some thought and didn’t just accept his case in its entirely. Calculating ‘loss of chance’ damages is always more of an art than a science by their very nature. But the award suggests they believe AH lost earnings of $2M. So the fact they gave different amounts to me suggest they were applying some though rather than the opposite.
3) The verdicts suggest that they didn’t believe Depp was an abuser (or what he did didn’t amount to abuse within the meaning of the op-ed) and that AH knew they were false. But also that they did not believe Heard tried to frame him by staging the scene at the penthouse. I don’t see how they are inconsistent. And again they suggest to me that they weren’t just blindly swayed by one party or the other, but they did approach the task forensically and considered each point on its own merits. The mixed verdict though will make any appeal much harder. Logically inconsistent verdicts can help you suggest a jury must have been confused; but where a jury returns a mixed verdict, appellate courts usually interpret that as them considering each count/item separately on its own merits and that they aren’t biased in favour of one party or another.
Like I say though, people will form their own opinions on the matter and I don’t think anyone is obliged to accept other the US verdict or the UK one. So I totally get your points. I actually posted here when the UK verdict was delivered that I found it perfectly reasonable; but even then there were people who were troubled by it.
But like I say, whilst I think people are entitled to disagree with the US verdict, I do have qualms of my own at the suggestion the jury didn’t put some thought into it.
@ dormousing_it
I like to think that back at Raccoon HQ someone is saying “How did you get on with finding us a pillow?”
That’s bullshit. MeToo is just as important today as it was in 2017. Just because one bad actor used it to punish her victim doesn’t mean that it’s not still a force in politics. And like many domestic abuse survivors, all I had to hear was that tape where Amber was laughing about “hitting, not punching” him as she said that no one would ever believe him.
She sounds exactly like my emotionally abusive mother. I remember that laugh from whenever I would confront my mom about reading my mail or expecting me to drop everything for her.
The belief that Depp’s supporters are either toxic or misogynist is grossly patriarchal.
Some of us are fellow survivors and we know the feeling of not being believed and staying with someone who bullies us on a constant basis. Depp might not be the perfect victim but who is?
It was my understanding that Depp’s lawyer claim was generalized to all Heard’s DV claims and supporting documents, i.e. photos not merely the staging of a particular incident. To believe Heard wasn’t abused you have to think all the photos etc. were faked, manipulated or taken out of context…and because the jury found actual malice Heard knew of how they were misleading. Yet the lawyer knew calling such behavior a hoax was false.
To rule that Heard defamed Depp is to rule she try to frame him even if you don’t think she staged a particular incident.
Ugh. I’m glad it’s over.
I frankly had bad feelings about both of them (in this case I think mutual abuse actually was possible, though it isn’t typically; Heard was not in a significantly weaker position to leave, like most women are, being a well known and high-earning actress in her own right) and I wish they’d gotten themselves into intensive individual therapy long ago, considering they of all people can afford mental health care.
Heard gave me bad feels because she reminded me of the ex girlfriend of a man I know who actually was abused. He has been seeking help for YEARS to heal from her abuse, gaslighting, manipulation and sexual assault. She was a charismatic and financially and socially powerful, very successful and well connected lawyer who possibly has a personality disorder (he was getting a grad degree at the time, so not in a strong financial position to leave), cheated on him multiple times, and told him flatly that she’d turn everyone against him and ruin his life forever by telling everyone he ever came in contact with that he raped and beat her if he ever left her or tried to tell anyone about her horrible behavior, and he keeps getting brushed off by absolutely everyone because “men don’t get abused” and has struggled with having relationships ever since. He lost almost his entire circle of friends because she knew nearly all of them and contacted every one of them that she could find when he finally did leave so she could follow through on her threat. Almost none of them ever spoke to him since. His third therapist gave him the brush off about a month ago and basically told him unhelpfully to just deal with it because there’s not much else can be done about it.
Depp gave me bad feels because he reminds me of my alcoholic ex and how all his inexcusable decisions were my fault, and told me I was abusing him, even though he had basically all the power in the relationship and certainly the bulk of the income.
It’s actually possible for both these scenarios to be true at the same time and that both Depp and Heard are both horrible messed-up people in different ways and really need help.
I don’t think it’ll end #metoo because that wasn’t just about women, it was about victims of abuse in general, regardless of gender (remember Terry Crews? Michael Gaston? Alex Winter?) and Depp alleged that Heard had abused him too (defamation could itself be considered a type of abuse as well.) Male victims of abuse and DV too often, as my friend’s experience illustrated, are not taken seriously at all, and they get little to no help.
I’m not in a place to judge really.
Sorry but after watching the trial live, I think that Amber Heard was actually the perpetrator and Johnny Depp the victim of abuse, not the other way round. That’s what the balance of the evidence actually suggested. Sure, there are people who who would use this to push a misogynistic agenda but everyone who supports the verdict is that way.
@ michael
No, they separated the statements into three issues. One was limited to the penthouse allegations only. That’s the one the jury found for AH on. But they found against her on the other two. So that was consistent with their findings for JD.
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22040933/johnny-depp-amber-heard-full-verdict-form.pdf
I see your point though and if there is to be an appeal it may this would be one of the grounds.
The trial in the UK did not actually prove those 14 instances of abuse. People seem to forget that the UK trial was a defamation suit against the British tabloid, The Sun. So they did not have to prove that, only that The Sun had reasonable grounds to believe that the allegations were true. Oh, and at one least photograph was actually proven to of been edited during the trial by a metadata expert.
@Tim Lieder
While I’m glad the verdict helped you feel more believed, I think it’s important to remember it had the opposite effect on many other victims.
That in itself doesn’t make the verdict incorrect or unjust, but I think it’s important to keep in mind–it provides context as to why some have found the verdict distressing.
@ jono
I’m afraid that’s not actually correct.
But I see that a lot of people think that, so perhaps I should briefly address it.
Depp sued the Sun over an article that said he shouldn’t be in some film because of domestic violence allegations.
Now there were a number of defences open to the newspaper, some of which wouldn’t require them to prove the allegations were true.
However the newspaper very firmly nailed its colours to the mast that it would be pleading “Truth” as a defence. S.2 Defamation Act 2013.
So to succeed the paper needed to show that the allegations were “substantially true”.
What the paper actually had to prove is what we here call ‘meaning’. Unless the parties agree what the meaning is, the judge decides. The judge bases his decision on what ‘the reasonable reader’ would think the article meant.
“The hypothetical reasonable reader is not naïve, but he is not unduly suspicious. He can read between the lines. He can read in an implication more readily than a lawyer and may indulge in a certain amount of loose thinking but he must be treated as being a man who is not avid for scandal and someone who does not, and should not, select one bad meaning where other non defamatory meanings are available. A reader who always adopts a bad meaning where a less serious or non-defamatory meaning is available is not reasonable: s/he is avid for scandal. But always to adopt the less derogatory meaning would also be unreasonable: it would be naïve.”
Here the judge held that meaning of the article, and thus what the Sun had to prove was:
“The Claimant beat his wife, Amber Heard”
The judge found that on 12 of 14 alleged occasions that had happened, thus the article was “substantially true”; and so the Sun won.
I’m sure that Depp was the instigator. But even if he wasn’t, my sympathy for a man who talks about women like this:
https://twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/1532430799622000651
Is so small you couldn’t spot it with a synchrotron and a wire chamber. Even aside from his long, proven history of being an entitled scumbag.
And in every other respect this trial has just been so unfair, and set such a bad precedent – both legally, and in proving how effective sexist propaganda can be, even vs. feminists. I’m sure every well known DV or sexual abuse case in the US from now on will be accompanied by a sweeping far-right propaganda campaign. I hope the courts will at least catch on, but it’s hard for me to feel optimistic right now.
@Alan Robertshaw, I also heard that a lot of evidence that was presented in the US trial, which would of vindicated him was inadmissible in the UK trial. Maybe the verdicts were different because different evidence was used? All I can say is that after watching the US trial live, I do believe that the verdict was correct based on what was presented in court in the US trial. I have no idea what happened in the UK trial because I didn’t follow it nor have I read the court transcript but all the evidence presented in the US trial suggested that Amber Heard was the primary aggressor and none of photos or audio recordings corroborated her story.
@ jono
Well to say the evidence would have vindicated is to beg the question a bit. But as to your main point…
Indeed the evidence in the two trials was not identical.
That wasn’t so much about admissibility, as obtaining the evidence in the first place.
Prior to trial the parties have to do something called disclosure (or discovery as it’s called in the US). That’s where each side gives the other side a list of all documents (hard copy or electronic) pertaining to the matter that they hold. They also give a list of documents they once held but no longer do; and documents they know about but are outside their control.
Unless certain conditions apply (say a document is privileged) each side must provide the other with a copy of any document they ask for or a chance to inspect the documents.
But note that’s only between the parties. In the Sun case AH was a witness.
So the Sun applied for what is known as a ‘third party disclosure order’. As the name suggests, if granted the order requires the third party to undertake the same disclosure exercise as the parties to the case.
The application though was refused. So AH could not be compelled to disclose or provide any materials; so there was no evidence available from that source
As to whether that put JD at any material disadvantage I shall leave as an exercise for the reader.
One thing to bear in mind though. The evidence mainly went to credibility; and secondary evidence on that is rarely allowed here anyway. The rationale is that (a) the trial judge can see the witnesses give evidence and form their own views as to credibility and (b) UK courts like to avoid ‘satellite litigation’. That is to say; they just want the trial to deal with the actual claim at hand. When you allow credibility evidence, you end up having a mini trial within a trial about whether the original discreditable conduct has been proved.
@Lorna – Yeah, the claims that Heard faked injuries with makeup seemed off.
@Reaktor – That makes sense, especially considering the power difference. (Oh yes, and as someone in the Jezebel article pointed out, it’s bad faith for Depp’s team to go “mutual abuse” and then say “he never abused anyone” in the next breath.)
I’m just not sure about a definite statement that there’s *never* mutual abuse. But I’m thinking of a parent-child (mother-daughter) relationship: starting when I was 11, I would hit and threaten my parents when I got angry, generally making life hell for them once a week or more. When I was 13, my mother responded at one point by taking a wooden spoon and chasing me with it.
She just spanked me with it, which didn’t hurt much, but I was terrified. In my mind, she was using a “weapon,” she was bigger and stronger, etc.
So, while it’s true I was the instigator and the abusive one, I don’t think she should have done that. (In general, I think parents shouldn’t use physical punishment on children, because it creates fear and resentment.)
But this isn’t being argued in a court, and we get along as adults (mostly), since I’ve admitted doing wrong and changed my behaviour. I doubt that Depp is taking the same steps.
@Alan Robertshaw, I think that you basically confirmed what I suspected. AH was not a party to the case in the UK, so that evidence wasn’t allowed in, whereas in the US, JD was suing her directly, so it was.
Well, it seems of vindicated him in the US case. I didn’t think that was begging the question because it was based on the fact that there was two different findings.
Some evidence from AH’s side was not allowed in the US case because of discovery violations, AH’s legal team failed to disclose it JD’s team, so it was excluded. Also, what came out during the trial is at least one photograph (according to JD’s metadata expert) from AH was actually edited to make her face look redder and appear to have red mark on her face – it was the same picture as another one that submitted, which showed no such mark but which AH claimed was just with different lighting. The metadata however indicated showed that it was the exact same picture due to the date time it was taken. It was just changed in a photo editing program. None of the other pictures or audio recordings matched the story she said on the stand. There were also no medical records either. Yes, I know that not all victims of abuse get medical treatment but the difference in this case is that from her description, her injuries would have been such that she would have needed serious medical treatment or she would have died. Yet, she even claimed that she didn’t get any medical treatment.
Okay, it seems like you know more about legal stuff than I do. However, given that the whole point of defamation is about someone making a false statement that harms ones reputation, I would of thought a defamation case would be all about credibility as that goes to determining whether that statement is true or false? I mean, if you had audio recordings or photographs that appear to contradict what someone is saying on the stand, surely that would be relevant?
@ jono
Oh indeed. That sort of material goes right to the heart of the issue to be resolved; i.e. what actually happened.
But whilst obviously material evidence that contradicts a witness’s oral evidence may have a knock-on effect on their credibility; that’s not the (sole) purpose for which it is being submitted.
That’s a subtle difference, but an important one legally.
Material that solely goes to credibly but has no direct bearing on the issue in the case generally isn’t admissible.
The rule is that you can put previous bad or dishonest conduct to a witness; but if they deny it, that’s the end of it. You can still suggest to the judge or jury the witness is lying; but you can’t start introducing evidence to try to back that up. Because as mentioned you then get the witness challenging that evidence also; and now you’re having a trial about all that as well.
Also the mere fact a witness may have lied isn’t necessarily determinative. Courts recognise that people like for all sorts of reasons; a foolish attempt to bolster a case, tot protect others, shame over disreputable conduct etc. So whilst triers of fact can take into account proven lies when assessing credibility we don’t have the Roman Law thing here of ‘false in one thing, false in all’. They can still find that people were believable on some matters even if they lied about others.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
And just to refer back the the third party disclosure thing…
Because a witness isn’t a party to the case it’s considered unfair that they should have to pay for the costs of complying with disclosure, and indeed the application for the order. So the requesting party has to pick up the tab (they’re the ones who want the work done).
In the US trial JD got a third party disclosure order against the ACLU. That’s where all the evidence over the donation/pledge payments came from. That seems to have been very helpful to Depp, and possibly what swung the case according to at least one juror.
But now the ACLU are chasing Depp for their $360,000 costs.
@Tim Leider, I knew I remembered you. Still attacking women when men attack them. Remember when a proto-incel named Richard Brittain took a fucking train from London to Scotland to attack a shipgirl because she gave his creepy stalker novel—-about a woman he stalked—–a bad review? He found where she worked, grabbed a bottle of wine off the store shelf, and bashed her over the head with it?
The attack knocked her out and bled profusely. It required quite a few stitches.
You spent months calling her a liar.
Just like you’re falsely accusing Amber Heard.
My, my, my, some things don’t change.
@Jono, you’re wrong. To believe Depp you have to believe Heard launched a vast conspiracy at the age of 23, in which every phone she made, every email, every statement, every photo, was all lies—–and that Depp had nowhere to go, no one to protect him, (hello? LAPD? Fanboys to wife beaters?) , no $750-an-hour-bodyguards, and no power at all, AND was telling the truth, besides? Depp is a rich old white guy 30 years her senior who he lovebombed in classic abuser fashion, then gradually started abusing her, even as he surrounded himself with enablers, yes men, and a strangely large selection of wife beaters, rapists, and men who rape little girls. You’d have to believe that male-dominated Hollywood—-where Mel Gibson has a career—-was strangely particular when it came to Depp.
You’d have to avoid anything but Depp’s sleazebag fan club, his misogynist PR, his own misogyny, and that oligarch-adjacent Adam Waldman who tries to get Russian oligarches like Deripaska re-admitted to the US, with help from Paul Manafort and potentially Putin himself. You’d have to ignore the way all his “witnesses” are in his employ and debt. You’d have to ignore all the times he got caught lying, the way he giggled in court at Heard, the positively evil texts about raping, burning, drowning, shitting ON Amber that he sent. You’d have to imagine……well, it’s Qanon, where viruses don’t mutate, vaccines are evil, and Trump—–who Depp resembles in some ways—-is the only one who tells the truth, despite all the lies.