Even before the jury decided in Johnny Depp’s favour, the publicity surrounding this case was troubling
The publicity surrounding the defamation suit brought by the actor Johnny Depp against his former wife and fellow actor Amber Heard would have been concerning whatever the verdict. There are precedents in the US for trials involving celebrities that become media circuses. This, though, was particularly ugly. Partly that was due to the intimate nature of the case, involving as it did the breakdown of a brief and disastrous marriage. The invasion of privacy was magnified to grotesque proportions by continuous coverage on social media, and the Virginia court’s decision to allow live-streaming. With Mr Depp’s grossly insulting messages to other actors about Ms Heard now common knowledge, the phenomenon of trial as entertainment plumbed new depths of offence and misogyny.
Mr Depp’s victory brings further worrying implications. The jury decided that his ex-wife defamed him in a 2018 article for the Washington Post, in which she called herself a “public figure representing domestic abuse”, even though his name was not mentioned. There is a risk that, in future, other women who wish to speak or write about domestic abuse may be deterred by the fear of being sued by former partners.
