On Wednesday, after more than six weeks of testimony and deliberations, a Virginia jury decided that Amber Heard defamed ex-husband Johnny Depp when she identified herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse” in a 2018 Washington Post essay that ran under the headline “Amber Heard: I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change.”
The jury also found that Heard had been defamed by one of Depp’s lawyers when he called her accusations of domestic violence a hoax. But by awarding Depp $15 million and Heard $2 million, the decision clearly supported Depp’s yearslong contention that he had never perpetrated domestic or sexual violence against Heard and that she had been lying when she said he did.
Since it began, the livestreamed trial was zealously parsed by supporters of each actor; the decision launched an equally disparate welter of reactions — it was “justice for Johnny” or “the end of #MeToo.” L.A. Times reporter Meredith Blake and columnist Mary McNamara discuss what the trial may or may not mean for women, for men and for the culture they share.
