After gruelling six-week-long trial proceedings in Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s defamation lawsuit, the jury unanimously sided with Depp on the case on June 1. At the time, the Aquaman actress took to her social media as she released a public statement, expressing her ‘disappointment’ with the verdict. Now, the actress appeared for her very first interview with NBC, since she lost the case to Johnny. Amber said that the trial wasn’t fair. She said Johnny’s witnesses were ‘randos’ and ‘paid employees’.
In an interview released on Monday, Amber said the “hate and vitriol” she suffered on social media during her libel trial against Johnny was not “fair.” However, she insisted that she did not blame the jury for largely siding with her ex-husband. After a six-week-long trial, a Virginia jury awarded Johnny more than $10 million in damages for defamation, in contrast to just $2 million for Amber who had counter-sued.
“I don’t presume the average person should know those things. And so I don’t take it personally. But 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 look me in the eye and tell me that you think on social media there’s been a fair representation,” Amber told NBC.
She added, “How could they make a judgment? How could they not come to that conclusion? They had sat in those seats and heard over three weeks of non-stop, relentless testimony from paid employees and towards the end of the trial, randos, as I say.”
The controversial trial that got everyone glued to it, was live-streamed to millions. It featured dark and intimate details about the celebrities’ private lives, and Amber was targeted by countless social media posts and internet memes throughout.
As for those unfamiliar with the lawsuit, Depp sued Heard for USD 50 million on charges of defamation, of which he has won USD 15 million, as she wrote an Op-Ed in 2018 in The Washington Post which painted her as the “public figure representing domestic abuse.”
Though she did not mention Depp’s name in her opinion piece it was clear that the defamatory article was pointing toward him, the ex-husband she divorced on charges of domestic violence in 2016. After Depp’s claim, Heard counter-sued him for USD 100 million for three statements made by the actor’s previous attorney Adam Waldman in an exclusive to Daily Mail.
