'Depp v. Heard': Answers to your burning questions after watching Netflix's new doc
Just 14 months after the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp defamation trial ended, Netflix is revisiting the livestreamed he said-she said battle that captured not only a nation but seemingly the entire social media universe.
Depp, 60, and Heard, 37, faced off in civil court over a 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post in which she suggested she suffered “domestic abuse” at the hands of Depp. Although she didn't name him, Depp filed a $50 million defamation suit, and Heard, his ex-wife, countersued for $100 million.For weeks, from the hearing’s start in April until its conclusion in June, viewers flocked to social media to scrutinize the testimony, evidence and litigation teams; they largely favored Depp and ridiculed Heard. The three-part “Depp v. Heard” (now streaming) examines the backlash against Heard and also interweaves the former spouses’ testimony together so viewers can get each account of major blowups back to back.
Heard and Depp’s story started out promisingly when they fell in love while filming 2011’s “The Rum Diary,” based on Hunter S. Thompson’s novel.
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“She seemed to be the perfect partner: literate, sweet, funny,” Depp testified from the Fairfax, Virginia, courtroom. The couple wed in 2015.
“There wasn’t any love like that, you know?” Heard said from the stand. “And then he would… disappear.”
Audio and video recordings of heated arguments between the pair were played in court, but Depp insisted he never physically abused Heard. Here are questions you may have after watching the docuseries:
Why were cameras allowed in the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial?
Elaine Bredehoft, an attorney for Heard, said during a June 2022 appearance on “Today” that she argued against cameras in the courtroom due to the “sensitive nature” of the trial. Televising it, she said, “made it a zoo.” And she was right. The live feed provided endless fodder for online commentators.
Depp’s attorney, Camille Vasquez, said Depp pushed for cameras in a July 2022 interview with “CBS Mornings.”
“For Johnny, it was about finally being able to tell his story,” she told Gayle King. “These are horrific allegations that were made against him. He needed to be able to tell his story. So, it was important.”
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Why did Johnny Depp lose his British defamation suit against The Sun?
Depp filed an unsuccessful suit against the publisher of The Sun after a 2018 article labeled him a “wife-beater.” Justice Andrew Nicol ruled in November 2020 that “the great majority of alleged assaults of Ms. Heard by Mr. Depp have been proved to the civil standard.” Nicol stated he believed Depp had committed 12 acts of domestic violence against Heard.“So what did Depp’s team learn from this?” Bredehoft asked during her “Today” interview. “Demonize Amber and suppress the evidence. We had an enormous amount of evidence that was suppressed in this case that was (admitted) in the U.K. case.”
What evidence was excluded in the US trial, and why?
Heard’s sister, Whitney Henriquez, is the only one to testify she witnessed Depp physically abuse Heard. But one piece of evidence that was not presented to jurors might’ve further validated Heard’s claims. Depp’s former assistant, Stephen Deuters, supposedly texted Heard after an incident when Depp allegedly kicked Heard to the floor of the plane on a flight from Boston to Los Angeles in 2014. But the text messages, which were allowed in the U.K. trial, were not admissible in the Virginia courtroom. Deuters' texts were ruled hearsay.
He claimed to TMZ in 2016 that the texts had been altered. “Stephen Deuters challenged the validity of the text messages in the U.K. proceedings, but when presented with the forensic evidence verifying the validity, Depp withdrew his objection on the basis of validity,” Bredehoft said in an email to USA TODAY. “We believe a SIGNIFICANT amount of damaging evidence to the Plaintiff and supporting evidence for the Defendant was excluded from the U.S. trial based on evidentiary rulings with which we took exception.” Vasquez did not return USA TODAY's request for comment.
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Why didn’t the jury believe Amber Heard?
As “Depp v. Heard” shows, Heard and her team appeared to be caught in some half-truths. Bredehoft presented a makeup compact to the jury, which she said her client carried to cover up bruises caused by Depp. Although it is possible Bredehoft was only using makeup as an example, its manufacturer stated the product was released after the couple’s split.
In another instance, Heard declared on a talk show that she’d donated her $7 million divorce settlement from Depp, splitting it between the American Civil Liberties Union and Children's Hospital Los Angeles. But when pressed by Vasquez on the stand, Heard said she uses donating and pledging synonymously, and, in fact, had not made her contribution to the charities in full. The jury, consisting of five men and two women, also listened to audio recordings of Heard admitting she hit Depp.
“A lot of Amber’s story didn’t add up,” an anonymous male juror told “Good Morning America” in June 2022. “The majority of the jury felt she was more the aggressor. The crying, the facial expressions that she had, the staring at the jury. All of us were very uncomfortable,” he added, saying some felt she relied on “crocodile tears.” He said the revelation that Heard had not paid her charitable pledges in full proved “a fiasco for her.” The juror said he felt that while “they were both abusive to each other… to rise to the level of what she was claiming, there wasn’t enough ‒ or any ‒ evidence that really supported what she was saying.”
On June 1, 2022, the jury awarded Depp $15 million (later reduced to about $10 million) and Heard $2 million in damages. After Heard appealed, the former couple settled in December. She paid Depp $1 million, which he pledged to charities.
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