Johnny Depp’s Lawyers Deny Social Media Influenced Jury, Verdict Will Impact #MeToo Victims Coming Forward
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Johnny Depp’s lawyers refute that the outcome in the actor’s defamation trial against Amber Heard will impact the #MeToo movement and domestic violence victims coming forward, while also denying a statement made by Heard’s lawyers that social media around the televised trial swayed the jury.
Camille Vasquez and Ben Chew, who represented Depp in the trial, appeared on Good Morning America and Today Wednesday morning for separate interviews about the trial’s outcome. While appearing on Today and speaking to Savannah Guthrie, who disclosed at the top of the interview that her husband had consulted with Depp’s team for the case, Vasquez responded to whether they worried that the verdict would discourage other victims of abuse from coming forward.
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Vasquez said they were “here to talk about the case that we tried.”
“I mean, frankly, we don’t worry,” she continued. “We encourage all victims to come forward and have their day in court, which is exactly what happened in this case.”
She gave a similar response on Good Morning America, but elaborated further. “Domestic violence doesn’t have a gender,” she said. “We believe that the verdict speaks for itself, the facts are what they were, the jury made a unanimous decision based on those facts.”
When speaking to Today’s Guthrie, Chew stated that he and Vasquez had “ultimate confidence in Johnny and the jury and the facts of this case.” That includes whether social media may have swayed the verdict. Heard’s attorney argued last week that the jury members, who weren’t sequestered, were influenced in their decision by social media around the trial, turning the case into a “zoo.”
“How can you not [see it]?” Bredehoft told Today. “[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.”
Chew called the statement “disappointing” and argued the judge in the case was “very fair to both sides.”
“I think that was very disappointing to hear that and to hear her impugn the character of the jury and the evidence came in that should come in,” he said, later adding, “I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that the jurors violated their oath.”
“It is everywhere,” Vasquez added about the support for her client online, which Guthrie evidenced through TikTok numbers showing 20 billion views in the #JusticeforDepp hashtag on TikTok to Heard’s 27 million for her opposing hashtag. “But at the same time, they were admonished every single night, and they had a tremendous amount of respect, I think, for the court and the process, and they were doing the best that they could.”
Guthrie challenged that summation of Depp’s win, noting that the jury also found the actor responsible for defamation over statements published in the Daily Mail by his lawyer, Adam Waldman, who accused Heard of “staging a scene in furtherance of an abuse hoax,” the Today co-host said. When asked how Depp’s team can “square” that finding, Vasquez denied the verdict wasn’t “overwhelmingly positive” for Depp.
“I think that’s just the verdict is overwhelmingly positive for Johnny, and it was unanimous,” she added. “There were seven people that decided he was defamed.”
Later, when Guthrie questioned the duo about claims of a social media campaign against Heard orchestrated by Depp, Vasquez called it “categorically false.” Chew described the allegation as “utterly baseless” and “absolutely absurd.”
“In fact, very early in the case, the prior Chief Judge White had thrown out count and counterclaims that related to that,” he added.
As for why there were opposing rulings in the U.S. case, which involved defamation claims between Heard and Depp directly, versus the U.K. case where Depp lost his libel claim that British tabloid The Sun had defamed him when calling him a wife beater in their reporting, Vasquez stated that “the overwhelming evidence that was presented in this case in Virginia far exceeded what was presented in the U.K.”
In a statement provided to The Hollywood Reporter, a spokesperson for Heard responded to Vasquez and Chew’s morning show appearances: “It is as unseemly as it is unprofessional that Johnny Depp’s legal team has chosen to do a victory lap for setting back decades of how women can be treated in the courtroom. What’s next? A movie deal and merchandising?”
Heard and her lawyer have announced they plan to appeal the verdict requiring the actress to pay Depp $10 million, a figure Bredehoft said the actress “absolutely” couldn’t afford. When asked on GMA about these plans, Chew told the outlet the case was about Depp’s reputation, not money.
“This was never about money for Mr. Depp,” he said. “This was about restoring his reputation, and he’s done that.”
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