Depp, Heard Fans Wait, Speculate, While Jury Deliberates

Many celebrity court cases have captured the attention of the public over the years, but few have taken a literal world tour. The curious case of Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard has had weeks of testimony and mountains of evidence all to prove or disprove one thing: When Amber Heard wrote in her 2018 Washington Post editorial that she "became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out," was she, in fact, speaking of her former husband Johnny Depp?

The couple had divorced in 2016, the year Heard refers to in her published statement, with submitted claims of domestic abuse. The joint statement issued at that time read, "Our relationship was intensely passionate and at times volatile, but always bound by love. There was never an intent of physical or emotional harm. Neither party has made false accusations for financial gains."

A lot could be unpacked from that statement. For example, the qualifier "for financial gains" doesn't mean that neither party didn't make false statements against the other, just that it wasn't done for the purpose of making money. This could play a pivotal role in this case, or future cases against Heard, with the revelation that the proceeds of the divorce settlement, which were declared to be destined for charitable donations, were never actually donated.

And that should have been the end of it, until the 2018 op ed dredging up the old wounds, allowing Depp to counter. And that's when everything started getting murky, as we learned about "mega pints" of wine, cocaine usage, bedsheet defecations, the miraculous bruise covering effects of Arnica cream, and other outlandish claims as the goal seemed to have shifted from "I did not do the thing I am accused of" to "which of these people is the worse in their private life interactions?" The courtroom spectacle often delved into the farcical world of examining what people on social media were saying about the case, and who was talking to them, entering into the record names of podcasters like That Brian Fella and That Umbrella Guy.

The U.S. trial wrapped up final testimony last week, and the world of both actor's fandoms await an outcome. Opinions are heated on both sides, and will probably get only more so once the verdict is returned. But, at the very least, any negative impact on either actor's career will have the bulwark of due process having been done, rather then any nebulous "he said / she said" rumor.