Amber Heard has for the first time spoken out publicly since a jury ruled that she defamed her ex-husband as she noted that the jury were swayed by Johnny Depp’s celebrity status.
During the interview, Amber slammed the “unfair representation” of the trial on social media, claiming that Depp’s status as a celebrity actor helped to sway the jury’s verdict while suggesting that the witnesses who were called to testify on behalf of Depp did not give an accurate view of what went on in her marriage.
Amber Heard, who flew to New York City on a private jet to conduct the interview said: “I’ll put it this way, how could they make a judgment? They had said in those seats and heard over three weeks of nonstop, relentless testimony from paid employees and towards the end of the trial, randos, as I say. I don’t blame them, I actually understand, he’s a beloved character and people feel that they know him. He’s a fantastic actor”.
Amber also questioned how the jury could not believe a word that came out of her mouth, and even called her “uncredible”, after listening to three and a half weeks of testimony.
During the six-week trial in Fairfax, Virginia, which started on April 11 and concluded on June 1, Depp called 38 witnesses while Heard’s team called 24.
Both Depp and Heard gave evidence for four days each, including a forensic cross-examination from the opposition lawyers, then both returned to the witness stand to testify a second time.
The jury saw dozens of texts, photos, videos, medical records and even pages from the former couple’s ‘Love Journal’ they hand-wrote to each other.
Throughout the trial, the hashtag #JusticeForJohnnyDepp the hashtag had more than 20.6 billion views on TikTok as of June 13, while the #JusticeForAmberHeard tag had 92.4 million views.
Amber Heard, who says she was subjected to “hate and vitriol” online throughout the trial and in the wake of the verdict said: “Even if you think that I’m lying, you still couldn’t look me in the eye that you think on social media there’s been a fair representation. You cannot tell me that you think that this has been fair. I don’t care what anyone 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 those things so, I don’t take it personally”.
Earlier this month, a jury ruled that Heard defamed her ex-husband by publishing a piece about being a sexual assault survivor in the Washington Post. She was ordered to pay Depp $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages, although the second payment was reduced to $350,000 per Virginia law by the judge. She was awarded a relatively paltry $2 million in compensatory damages.
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