You know what, it is a setback. Now real female victims who deserve to be heard when they say they’ve been assaulted or abused would have less platform to be believed in because of her bullshit. While I’m incredibly joyful for male victims being able to come forward and hold abusers of any gender accountable, Amber Heard created more damage to women’s rights than she ever helped it improve.
If you side with a woman who admitted committing DV, a woman who stole another woman’s SA story, a woman who edited pictures in order to frame Johnny Depp, a woman who despite allegedly being beaten to within an inch of her life and then appeared on TV the next day without a scratch, a woman who was the reason Johnny lost part of his finger, a woman who caused structural damage to a bed base with a pen knife and blamed Johnny’s boot, a woman who gaslighted & mentally abused a vulnerable man, a woman who accused several doctors, nurses, police officers, security guards of lying, a woman who threw her own legal team under a bus, a woman who is being investigated for perjury in more than one country, a woman who alerted news outlets of her divorce then lied about it, a woman who refused to believe anyone’s version of events but her own despite the overwhelming evidence, a woman with previous criminal records for DV then please, please, I beg you…
I’m seeing a lot of people either misunderstanding the verdict or misrepresenting it as “the jury beleived she was abused but decided she shouldn’t/couldn’t talk about it” when that simply isn’t the case. Because of this, I’ve put this together to summarize what the verdict actually was and what it meant:
On Johnny Depp’s Claims:
Claim 1- “I spoke up against sexual violence-and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change.” - Verdict:DEFAMATION
Claim 2- “Then two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out.” - Verdict: DEFAMATION
Claim 3- “I had the rare vantage point of seeing, in real time, how institutions protect men accused of abuse.” - Verdict: DEFAMATION
Awarded Damages
Summative (Damages for harm rendered by statements) - $10 Million Dollars
Punative (punishment or “we just don’t like you Amber” damages) - $350,000 Dollars (the cap for Virginia, they attempted 5 million dollars)
On Amber Heard’s Claims:
Claim 1 - “Amber Heard and her friends in the media used fake sexual violence allegations as aboth a sword and a sheild, 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.” - Verdict: NOT DEFAMATION
Claim 2 - “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 penthouse, throughly searched and interveiwed, and left after seeing no damage to face or property. So Amber and her friends spilt a little wine and roughed the place up, got their stories stright under the direction of a lawyer and publicist, and then placed a second call to 911.” - Verdict: DEFAMATION
Claim 3 - “[W]e have reached the begining of the end of Ms. Heard’s abuse hoax against Johnny Depp.”Verdict:NOT DEFAMATION
Awarded Damages:
Summative (Damages for harm rendered by statements) - $2 Million Dollars
Punative (punishment or “we just don’t like you Johnny” damages) - $0
Summary of what this means:
What this means is that the jury not only did not beleive that Amber Heard was abused, but beleived that she did start a malicious abuse hoax camapaign against him. We can see that because they ruled all of Johnny’s Claims as defamation and and the first and thrid claim, which talk generally about Amber Heard starting an abuse hoax, as NOT defamation.
However, it seems they either didn’t beleive, or didn’t beleive that it was proved by better weight of the evidence that Amber and her friends roughed up the apartment specifically. So what they didn’t beleive was the more specific claim, not the general ideas.
THIS DOES NOT MEAN THEY RULED SHE WAS ABUSED BUT SHE’S JUST NOT ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT IT. THIS MEANS THEY RULED SHE WASN’T ABUSED AND WAS LYING ABOUT IT MALICIOUSLY IN AN ATTEMPT TO DEFAME JOHNNY DEPP.
