Amber Heard Lost Because She Was Vilified on Social Media, Her Attorney Suggests
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Amber Heard’s attorney suggests a Virginia jury didn’t believe her client’s abuse claims because of social media.
Elaine Bredehoft spoke to NBC’s Today on Thursday morning to slam the outcome of Johnny Depp’s defamation lawsuit against Heard. The jury ruled Wednesday that Heard defamed Depp on three claims and that Depp defamed Heard on just one of her counterclaims, resulting in a major legal victory for the Pirates of the Caribbean actor.
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Bredehoft said the non-sequestered jury could not have escaped the bombardment of Twitter, Instagram and TikTok posts slamming her client. Asked if she thought social media had an impact on the case, Bredehoft replied “absolutely.”
“How can you not [see it]?” Bredehoft asked. “[The jury] went home every night. They have families. The families are on social media. We had a 10-day break in the middle because of the judicial conference. There’s no way they couldn’t have been influenced by it. And it was horrible. It really, really was lopsided. It’s like the Roman Colosseum.”
Surveys of social media found that the #JusticeForJohnny campaign was far more pervasive than posts supporting Heard (to get a sense of the disparity, Depp’s post-trial message to fans on Instagram has been liked by 17 million, while Heard’s message has been liked by about 300,000). Many of the viral memes and posts were particularly cruel, such as mocking Heard’s apparent crying on the witness stand.
Bredehoft added that the six-week trial had become a “zoo.”
“I was against cameras in the courtroom, and I went on record with that and argued against it because of the sensitive nature of this,” she said. “But it made it a zoo.”
Bredehoft suggested another factor was not being allowed to present certain evidence. She said Heard’s medical records were not allowed in the trial, something she called “very significant” because they showed Heard reporting abuse to her therapist since 2012.
The attorney further noted Heard plans to appeal the verdict, which requires the actress to pay Depp $10 million — a figure Bredehoft said her client “absolutely” could not afford.
“Johnny Depp brought a suit in the U.K. for the same case and the burden of proof was easier for him there,” she said. “The court found there — and we weren’t allowed to tell the jury this — but the court found that Mr. Depp had committed at least 12 acts of domestic violence, including sexual violence, against Amber. So what did Depp’s team learn from this? Demonize Amber and suppress the evidence. We had an enormous amount of evidence that was suppressed in this case that was in the U.K. case. In the U.K. case, when it came in, Amber won. Mr. Depp lost.”
According to experts interviewed by The Washington Post, Depp lost in the U.K. yet won in the U.S. because the U.K. case had a judge making the decision instead of a jury. “We find that [Depp’s legal team’s strategy of deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender] works very well with juries but almost never works with judges, who are trained to look at evidence,” said Mark Stephens, an international media lawyer. “Essentially what you have got is a jury believing evidence that a British judge did not accept.”
Heard previously said in a statement that the verdict was a disappointment “beyond words. I’m heartbroken that the mountain of evidence still was not enough to stand up to the disproportionate power, influence and sway of my ex-husband.”
Depp issued a statement saying: “The jury gave me my life back. I am truly humbled.”
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