5 thoughts on Depp vs Heard…

I think there’s so much confusion out there and most of it is not benign but the product of people with different agendas who can’t separate their beliefs from actual facts of the case.

More and more, it seems like people prefer to use ‘facts’ to prop their confirmation bias. If it doesn’t align with already conceived notions, it’s discarded. These days, facts or data aren’t used for illumination but for confirmation of an already held belief. As such, everyone is often right, depending on what’s being presented. There’s no truth, just individual versions of it. That’s largely tragic.

Anyway, I have a bunch of thoughts I can’t help but share.

1. This is a defamation case.

I think everyone understands what defamation/libel means by now. This isn’t exactly about whether Depp abused Amber or vice versa, but about Depp, saying that Amber’s Washington Post article was based on untruths and that these lies damaged him and his career. During the trial, Amber was found to have lied, manufactured evidence, edited photos, and done all sorts just to pin Johnny as an abuser.

Is Johnny a saint in this case? Absolutely not. I think that they were both players and victims in an incredibly toxic relationship but one person weaponised a movement and told lies just to ruin another.

2. Amber’s ‘win’ was against Johnny Depp’s lawyer defaming her.

Heard’s counterclaim contended that Depp’s former attorney Adam Waldman had made defamatory statements about her in several Daily Mail articles. In an April 8, 2020, statement, Waldman said: “​Amber Heard and her friends in the media use fake sexual-violence allegations as both a sword and shield depending on their needs. They have selected some of her sexual-violence hoax ‘facts’ as the sword, inflicting them on the public and Mr. Depp.”

The second statement at issue in Heard’s counterclaim was from April 27, 2020, when Waldman told the Daily Mail, “Quite simply this was an ambush, a hoax. They set Mr. Depp up by calling the cops, but the first attempt didn’t do the trick. The officers came to the penthouses, thoroughly searched and interviewed, and left after seeing no damage to face or property. So Amber and her friends spilled a little wine and roughed the place up, got their stories straight under the direction of a lawyer and publicist, and then placed a second call to 911.” This statement referred to an alleged fight between Depp and Heard in May 2016.

Finally, Heard claimed that Waldman’s April 27, 2020, statement “We have reached the beginning of the end of Ms Heard’s abuse hoax against Johnny Depp” was defamatory. The jury considered these statements individually and ultimately decided that only Waldman’s April 27, 2020, statement that starts with “Quite simply” was defamatory.

It’s interesting how most people citing that Amber also won against Depp often shy away from the specifics of her ‘win’.

3. Yes, Johnny lost the libel case in the UK. Why did he win in the US?

In the UK case, Depp was up against The Sun and not Amber Heard. Also, the UK case was tried by a judge while the US case verdict was delivered by a jury.

Justice Nicol of the UK High Court had said that “a recurring theme in Depp’s evidence was that Ms Heard had constructed a hoax and that she had done this as an ‘insurance policy,” and the actress was a “gold-digger”. He concluded that he did not accept that “characterisation” of Heard.

However, the verdict in the London court was not grounds to dismiss the suit against Heard filed in the US for the article in The Washington Post, which was published in December 2018. That’s why the Virginia case went forward.

I think that the thoroughness with which both cases were tried should be considered. In the UK, the case was tried over a space of 16 days while it took over a month in the US. There, the ‘mountain of evidence’ presented by Amber either backfired or was found to be fabricated.

Also, consider that it is quite difficult for Plaintiffs to win libel cases in the US than it is in the UK. Yet, Depp won where nobody expected him to and lost where it should have been easier to win.

Nothing more to say here other than note how curious this is.

4. Amber keeps tucking her case under the canopy of women’s rights and disingenuously so.

This might not necessarily be a problem but I don’t know how anyone would watch those court sessions, and conclude that Amber was the only victim.

Her articles were well times and her ‘losing statement’ was also interesting in that she made it about what all women go through. It’s dubious. This is a woman who curried support by saying she would donate her $7 million divorce settlement to charity but didn’t. She lied under oath in the London court in 2020 that she had donated it but she hasn’t till now.

To be clear, women go through shit. When running percentages, they’re unquestionably the ones on the receiving end of all forms of abuse. However, for a woman who’s on record to have gloated and insulted her ex-husband for running from fights and who was pretty sure he wouldn’t win (she mockingly said nobody would believe him), it’s hard to see her as yet another hapless female victim. That Amber wasn’t heard isn’t a blow to women or their freedom of speech, it’s a blow to women (and people in general) who fabricate evidence to ruin others.

Believe women? Of course! We just don’t believe YOU (based on various pieces of evidence).

So I do hope women continue to tell their stories and try to bring abusers to book. Will people believe them? Who knows? They however owe themselves and their consciences the truth.

5. People should not be insulted or mocked for their addiction.

It’s human nature to blame people for their addictions but the cause of addictions isn’t so black and white, so there’s never really just one thing to blame. Most importantly, the person with the addiction is not at fault for the disease.

Avoid implying or outright stating that an addict is to blame for their addiction. Shaming or criticizing anyone who is struggling with an addiction is often counterproductive to their recovery. While tough love may have a small part in helping an addict, compassion might be better.

This is a lived experience. I’ve lost family to addiction and every time I look back, I think the approach should have been different. It’s why I consider it poor taste that most people used Johnny’s addiction as a stick to beat him with. He’s an addict but that in itself is a tragedy and he needs help instead of abuse.

Anyhoo, as you were, people will hold on to what they want in the end (I resisted the temptation to do a Linkin Park at the end of this sentence)

Ki oluwa wa pelu yin.