I’m sure most of you have now heard at least a little bit about the Johnny Depp (58) vs Amber Heard (36) defamation lawsuit. If not, here is a recap of all that has happened.

Background

In 2009, Johnny Depp met Amber Heard on the filming set of 2009’s “The Rum Diary”. By early 2012, the two had begun dating. It was also in 2012 that Johnny Depp announced his separation from his longtime partner of 14 years, Paradis, who he had two children with. It might also be important to note that Amber Heard was arrested in 2009 for physically assaulting a woman after a disagreement. In 2014, Amber Heard was first seen with an engagement ring. They married in 2015, and Amber Heard divorced Johnny Depp after claiming physical abuse. She obtained a temporary restraining order 4 days later. She alleged that on May 21, Johnny Depp threw a phone at her and bruised her face. After a police investigation, it was determined no crime had been committed. After the divorce had been settled, Amber Heard received $7 million dollars in addition to the monthly spousal support of $50,000. She reportedly donated the $7 million to charity. The divorce was finalized in 2017. 

In December 2018, Heard wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post, saying she was abused. She wrote in this article, “I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out.” Soon after this, there were many articles published calling out Johnny Depp as a “wife-beater” and various other names. In 2019, Johnny Depp sued Amber Heard for defamation for $50 million dollars. He claimed his reputation was irreparably damaged and he lost millions of dollars in movie deals (such as the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise) from the article. This trial is still ongoing and Amber Heard has countersued for $100 million for defamation.

The Trial

This trial has become extremely publicized and clips of the trial are all over the internet. Seemingly, most of these clips are in outrage towards Amber Heard as many believe she has made up her stories and is attempting to portray Johnny Depp as a terrible human when he isn’t. Additionally, Amber Heard’s lawyers are often made fun of online for their questionable tactics. For example, Amber Heard’s lawyer exclaimed the objection of “hearsay” meaning an unprovable claim, an assumption, many times throughout Johnny Depp’s testimony. Several times the lawyer did not even allow Depp to begin his testimonies before shouting “hearsay”. Depp elicited a laugh from the court once when he was describing the cooking of Ms. Heard’s “favorite” meal as he paused right after he stated it was her favorite meal and said, “That’s hearsay, I guess”. 

Critical Points

There are some important critical points of the case to note:

• Depp has repeatedly claimed that he  “Never did I myself reach the point of striking Ms. Heard in any way nor have I ever struck any woman in my life” and there has been no physical evidence from any witnesses to deny this claim to any extent”
• Depp has claimed that Heard threw a vodka bottle at him and severely injured his finger
• A police officer released an image of a bruise on Depp’s face from allegedly being punched by Ms. Heard
• Recording has been released of Ms. Heard admitting to hitting Depp on the face but not “punching him”
• A key point for Ms. Heard’s defense was the surfacing of text messages in which Depp described Ms. Heard as a rotting dead corpse and r eferred to drowning her. Depp claims that this was just dark humor between friends that was wrong but does not support the claims of physical abuse. 
• Therapists and doctors took the stand and claimed that they had seen Ms. Heard and Mr. Depp argue but never to the point of physical escalation
• Ms. Heard’s lawyers repeatedly used hidden photos Ms. Heard took of Johnny Depp when he was high on drugs to their advantage. For example they used an image of Johnny Depp with a spilled ice cream in his lap to try to say that Depp was an angry and overly emotional man.
• A psychologists took the stand and disclosed her belief that Ms. Heard had two borderline personality disorders.
• A psychologist also testified that Ms. Heard’s claims of having Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) were false and that she exaggerated symptoms often.

It will be interesting to see how this rest of this suit turns out, but it seems that Mr. Depp’s case is strongly beating out Ms. Heard but there is never telling what a jury may do.