Celebrity
Amber Heard Says The Negative Social Media Coverage She Faced During Her Trial Was Unfair
“I don’t care what one thinks about me or what judgements you want to make about.”
In a recent interview, Amber Heard criticized social media’s role in the six-week trial that launched on April 11th in Virginia. Jurors had been ordered not to read about or research the case on social media, but Heard’s legal team had insisted it still impacted the case.
“There’s no way they couldn’t have been influenced by it and it was horrible. It really, really was lopsided,” Heard’s lawyer Elaine Bredehoft had told Savannah Guthrie on TODAY.
But in an appearance on the same show on June 8, Depp’s attorneys, Benjamin and Camille Vasquez said, insisted there was no reason to believe the jurors violated their oath by engaging on social media.
Doubling down on the subject matter, Heard told Guthrie in her interview: “Even somebody who is sure I’m deserving of all this hate and vitriol, even if you think that I’m lying, you still couldn’t tell me, look me in the eye and tell me, that you think on social media there’s been a fair representation. You cannot tell me that you think that this has been fair.”
In the exclusive interview, Heard also insisted she’s not offended by the public’s opinion of her.
She added: “I don’t care what one thinks about me or what judgments you want to make about what happened in the privacy of my own home, in my marriage, behind closed doors. I don’t presume the average person should know these things. And so I don’t take it personally.” Heard continued she doesn’t blame the jury for ruling against her.
.@savannahguthrie sat down for an exclusive conversation with #AmberHeard. "You cannot tell me that you think that this has been fair,” Heard shared, in reference to social media representation. pic.twitter.com/56Ju7pYg1x
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) June 13, 2022
“I actually understand. He’s a beloved character and people feel they know him. He’s a fantastic actor.”
Both Johnny Depp and Heard had battled in court over a 2018 op-ed she wrote for the Washington Post, which described surviving domestic abuse. She didn’t name Depp, but the Pirates of the Caribbean actor sued the Aquaman star for $50million, alleging the article impacted his career. She countersued for $100million, but Depp has since denied all allegations of abuse.
On social media, particularly on TikTok, people supported Depp amid the defamation trial as the hashtag #JusticeForJohhnyDepp had nearly 20billion views.
Back in 2020, Depp had lost a libel trial in the United Kingdom that raised some of the same problems. The actor sued a newspaper, The Sun, after claiming he assaulted Heard. A judge at the time ruled the claims the newspaper had published were substantially true. According to Heard’s attorney, that judgment was not disclosed to the jurors in Virginia.
