I don’t follow celebrities so I have very little idea what’s going on with Johnny depp but I’m really confused why everyone on tumblr is so adamant that he’s the one in the wrong when everywhere else the opposite opinion is popular? like i don’t get it
yeah i’m not sure, I think it’s because tumblr has always been the “social justice” website lmao, so maybe there are less totally shameless men’s rights activists on here. or maybe it’s because the bot farms depp and his team have been using to orchestrate a smear campaign against amber heard are more active on twitter. but still, there are pleeeennntttyyy of depp supporters on this website too.
can’t blame you for not caring about celebrities, but this case is imo pretty important in terms of the legal and cultural precedent it’s setting for victims of abuse, and also in terms of what it’s saying about the rampant misogyny in our society right now.
long story short, johnny depp, in his fifties, married amber heard, in her twenties (previously, he dated winona ryder when he was 26 and she was 17). he abused amber physically, emotionally, and sexually. there is extensive evidence of this. if you wanna learn more about how abuse works and what causes it (because there’s a LOT of misinfo going around right now) I highly recommend the book Why Does He Do That?.
in 2016, she successfully filed a restraining order against him, and came forward with allegations of abuse. they divorced, and he had to pay her seven million dollars in the settlement, which she pledged to charity. they made a joint statement agreeing that neither party had made false accusations for financial gain (ie, depp wasn’t denying the abuse). he continued to be one of the highest paid actors in hollywood (he’s earned millions upon millions since amber first made her allegations), and didn’t lose any roles as a result of the allegations.
then, The Sun, a UK newspaper, ran a headline calling him a wifebeater. Depp took them to court for libel, in a country where it’s VERY hard to lose a libel case. It was supposed to be an easy win for him, but he lost, with a judge ruling that 12 out of 14 incidents of alleged abuse were proven “to the civil standard” (the other two were ruled likely, but didn’t have enough evidence to be proven). So - he’s now a court convicted wifebeater, and because of this, he was dropped from the new harry potter movie (but still paid!).
Amber Heard also wrote an op-ed where she identified herself as a survivor of abuse, but didn’t mention Depp by name. Depp is now suing her for defamation, in Virginia, where less strict anti-SLAPP laws make it easier for him to manipulate the court system for his own purposes. He’s claiming that her op-ed is the reason he lost movie roles/his career is in a downward spiral, even though, as I mentioned, he was dropped from the harry potter movie because of his OWN failed lawsuit. (also, he’s an alcoholic and a coke addict, and people haven’t wanted him on set for years because he’s a menace who often can’t shoot scenes because he’s too drunk or high, costing studios lots of money, and is overall difficult to work with). he’s also claiming that amber was the abusive one, which is patently not true. her use of violence (which she has been open about from the very beginning) was in self-defense; his was to control, dominate, and torture her. (and no, she did not cut his finger off).
I’ve made a ton of posts about this and im not gonna rehash all my opinions on this one ask lol, but you can search my blog or google (take everything with a grain of salt, though, because like i mentioned, depp’s PR team has been pushing a scarily successful smear campaign against amber). @justiceamberheard is also a great source. But put simply:
