Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard

I've been watching some clips of the Depp vs Heard trials in Virginia. Here are my thoughts.

They're both really damaged people with a lot of issues and their relationship really brought out the worst in both of them. He is suing her for US$50 million for damages largely from loss of income because she defamed him (by saying he physically abused her, including sexual assault).

They've probably both lied during the course of this trial. She claimed to be a victim of this alcoholic, drug using, violent man, but turns out she was also using drugs, and was physically abusive herself. He on the other hand, is at least verbally abusive, so he's no angel either.

But remember she is not the plaintiff here. She doesn't have to prove that he abused her. He has to prove that she lied about him abusing her AND that this lie caused him to lose money. Both these things are hard to prove. The whole of Youtube is filled with videos with titles like "Amber Heard caught lying!" That's not what's on trial here. Even if you catch her lying a thousand times, it is still not proof that she specifically lied about the physical and sexual abuse. And on top of that, he still has to prove her lie caused him to lose the Disney and Fantastic Beasts movie roles and those film studios will not be cooperative because if he wins, they will look bad. I don't see him winning 50 million. He might win just a small compensation.

Having said that, I think he is getting what he wanted out of this trial, which was vindication in the public eye. 

I think some of what she said probably happened but a lot of what she said was made up. There was video footage of him smashing up a cabinet and I could see someone like that also being violent in other ways. But on the other hand, how is it that she's been recording him, and all she had was a video of him smashing up a kitchen cabinet? I just don't buy it.

One more thing. I believe Johnny Depp is spending some serious money on an online PR campaign because a few weeks ago, before I started paying attention to the trial,  all sorts of old videos and articles started appearing on my feed with titles like "Johnny Depp surprises cancer patients as Jack Sparrow." All of a sudden, I was seeing more Johnny Depp articles than stretchy pants ads. Bro, take it down a notch because is getting ridiculous!

Update: Johnny Depp won. Not only did the Jury decide on a $10million compensation from Amber  Heard to him, but they also decided on a $5million punitive charge (which got reduced to $350,000 as that's the maximum allowed in Virginia). That's what the jury thought of her - that she deserves punishment! And in one of the countersuing cases, Heard won back $2 million from Depp, so, all in all, she has to pay him over $8 million. I am surprised by how much he won. To be honest, at first, I didn't think he would win. How do you prove defamation? Somebody said you did something and you have to prove you didn't do it? How? It's too late to start collecting evidence now. But I think his team, particularly Camille Vasquez, saw a weakness in Amber Heard, which was her narcissistic personality and boy did they make full use of it. 

In hindsight, Amber Heard really had a choice between winning in court and winning the court of opinion and she tried to do both, which ultimately proved to be impossible. Winning the case in court would have meant admitting to some of her own flaws and wrongdoings (and by that I mean really owning up to them, not just saying, "I'm only human. I'm not perfect" and then changing the topic). But she is incapable of doing that, which led to some her telling some lies, and from there, they just gave her enough rope to hang herself. Instead of proving defamation, the Depp team focused on showing the court what a psycho Amber Heard is and she walked right into it. If Heard's team had focused on what defending the defamation instead of defending her reputation, they would have had a stronger case - Yes, our client wrote an article, you guys say it's defamation, prove it. Instead, they chose to try and win every battle, and to do that, she had to tell a LOT of lies. At first, she wrote the article, and then she might not have, and then she did. At first she didn't give photos to People magazine, and then she "certainly did not personally give it". She had a lot of wishy-washy answers that were either half-truths or technically not lies, as if she thought the jury was made up of robots. The nail in the coffin was when she turned to the jury and confidently told them with a snarky smirk that a pledge and a donation meant the same thing. 

There was also some wild speculations about Johnny's team specifically choosing a young beautiful lawyer like Vasquez to antagonize Heard and I don't believe that's how they would have chosen the lawyers, but what I would say is Amber Heard definitely had a lot of disdained for Vasquez and she was unable to hide it this worked towards Vasquez's favor. During cross examination, Heard would turn to face Vasquez to listen to the question and then immediately turn towards the jury and direct her answer directly towards them. She either did this to maximize eye contact with the jury or to show that Vasquez was undeserving of her attention. Whatever her reason was, it made her look extremely disrespectful and contemptuous. One lesson Amber Heard does not seem to have learnt in life is that how you treat other people reflects on you.

Actually, I really admire Amber Heard's endurance and tenacity, putting up a strong front for so many weeks, as her lies were pointed out right in front of her face. This is the kind of thick skin you need to survive in Hollywood.

Okay, honest talk. I'm glad the trial is over but I'm also suffering from withdrawal. I got so sucked into it. I'm not a Johnny Depp fan and I didn't even know who Amber Heard was. And then I watched one Asmongold video about the trial and I was hooked!  When I saw Amber Heard, I hated her immediately. All that lying and manipulating and entitlement and snarkiness and most of all, hiding behind the metoo movement.

I think my problem is I get super irritated when people try to present a fallacy as an argument and Heard's testimonies were full of them.

After the trial, both Heard and her lawyer Elaine Bredehoft gave TV interviews which just pissed me off. Bredehoft said that their loss was a big setback for all women and that from now on, nobody will believe any DV victims unless they hold up their phone to record themselves getting beaten. First of all, this is painting Amber as a representative of all women. She's not. This isn't a setback for all women. It is a setback for people who lie about DV. And I particularly hate the part about having to record yourself while being beaten, because what she's suggesting here is the alternative - that we have to believe every DV claim even if there is no evidence. To her credit, Bredehoft stopped doing interviews a few days later. I think she suddenly realised that she's a lawyer and perhaps shouldn't have been shitting on the justice system.

What pissed me off about the Heard interview was that she tried to hide behind free speech and said the defamation case was designed to silence her. If you lose a defamation case, it means you defamed someone in the eyes of the law and free speech doesn't protect you from that. Otherwise, defamation should be legal because every defamation case is a violation of free speech. Ugh! The whole interview was full of mindfucks!