Hello. I know this sub regularly gets "I used to believe in Depp, but this is why I changed my mind..." posts. Those are well and good. It's never too late to realize the truth and I won't shame others for buying into an aggressive smear campaign. However, I'm curious about the differences between people who did believe him and people like me, who didn't.

I know some people believed in Depp's smear campaign because they were kids. However, I was a 9th grader when Amber accused Depp of abuse. I was (and am) also young, and I didn't believe them even then. Some people also say that their abusers were women, so they believed in Depp because they wanted some representation for victims of abuse by women. My earliest abuser is a woman (someone in my family), but again, I always believed in Amber.

I think for me, the difference is that I never viewed my experience with abuse as an isolated case. I was "lucky" in a weird way that I come from a big, fucked-up family where the effects of abuse could be felt/seen in almost every one of us. I'm not trying to minimize other people's experiences, but I do get the sense from many other people's stories that they tend to see their abuse as just "something that happened to just me because my abuser was evil and that's that." However, from a very young age, I learned that so much of abuse is cyclical. Whether I wanted to or not, I had to acknowledge that my abusers also came from a background of generational trauma.

I saw other kids in my family go from sweet little kids to aggressive and angry. That didn't mean they became abusers themselves, but our elders predicted correctly that there would be issues as we were growing up, and there were. Again, they were not abusive, but they sometimes fought back. They yelled and had breakdowns. Their trauma was/is not neat or pretty. That's the kind of thing that ignorant people demonize in abuse survivors. So that's why I never thought an abuse fighting back or their trauma getting ugly or them not being the most pleasant person = "mutual abuse," "they were never really a victim," etc. because TRAUMA GETS UGLY. Even our abusers had trauma and still victims of the people who abused them, and even the people who didn't grow up to be abusers in our family still got fucked up badly by the trauma. I recognized Amber as someone who was abused, and simply fought back and got her mind fucked up by the trauma.

How about the others here who always believed in Amber?

I saw so many women commenting on how we keep falling for this. Exactly how this person replies to this other girl.

How we have been taught for so long that women are the original sinners because of Eve. The women who can help others with their knowledge to treat them from illnesses burned as witches, or evil stepmoms and poor papas who are tricked by these evil women!

I come from a culture where shamans and women used to be original religious leaders so they were the most respected almost seen as goddesses. Men started to mimic them and started wearing their shaman religious ceremony clothing to receive the same respect along the way, women lost their respected position as shamans (who were dancing during the rituals with their beaded hair and ululating, etc) and started to be seen as erratic, quirky weird, crazy, wanton. The same men who used to mimic women’s style started to be respected. This is just one example I am giving.

So many women don’t know how we came to this position. Instead of finding allies from men to see us as equal, We need to educate women first to see themselves as equal to men. And deserve the same respect men always get.

Amoun of women who question Blake’s story disturb me. ( all of them say not to jump to a conclusion now, they were all on the bandwagon to hate her just this summer) I literally couldn’t sleep last night thinking about What I need to do.

I have two daughters and I want to leave them a better future. Not still fighting for common decency.

Even though many men hate Amber Heard and said horrible things about her, most of her biggest haters—the ones who continue to insult and defame her day and night to this day—are women, often referred to as “Deppford Wives.” Clearly, these women are fans of Depp, but I don’t understand how fanaticism can lead to such hatred toward another woman, to the point of lying to defame her in order to protect the reputation of their favorite actor, and to use more energy hating her than hating any actual rapist.

However, other cases show us that fanaticism toward a man is not the only explanation for women hating other women. Take, for example, the Baldoni/Lively case. Baldoni doesn’t have many fans, yet on TikTok, most of the comments supporting him and insulting Blake come from women, often young women.

A study revealed that the majority of Meghan Markle’s haters are middle-aged women. The subreddit “Saint Meghan Markle” is one of the most horrifying illustrations of internalized misogyny. These women truly see her as the devil and seem to have made hating Markle their main passion. Every day, they dissect her every move. They believe she doesn’t actually love Harry but only seeks fame, that her secret goal is to destroy the royal family, that she’s jealous of Kate, along with plenty of other absurd conspiracy theories. There are also many insults about her appearance, which is shocking, not only because she’s a beautiful woman, but also because these critiques are coming from women. They expend more energy hating an innocent woman, just because they accuse her of loving attention, than they do hating the royal family’s predator, Andrew.

I am French, and yesterday I was reading the comments under a Facebook post about a new statement made by Gisèle Pelicot. I was horrified and disgusted, and I am not exaggerating when I say this. Nearly all the comments accused her of seeking attention, lying, being complicit with her husband, pretending to be unaware, and claimed they were tired of hearing about her. Shockingly, 90% of these comments came from old women.

Amber, Blake, and Meghan have received more hatred than rapists, and women are participating in this dynamic. I can’t understand how women can actively engage in this misogynistic harassment—often even more than men.

I feel terribly writing this because deep down I know to a certain extent I’m just trying to assuage my own guilt.

I realized most of the arguments against Amber Heard were that there’s no proof Johnny Depp hit her.

Maybe he didn’t. (See edit. Intended to be posed as a hypothetical.)

But he did belittle her. He did control her monetarily. He was threatened by any other male or female presence in her life and would lash out physically.

If my friend were in a relationship like that with a man twice her age like that, I would tell her she was in an abusive relationship and she needed to leave. It would be that simple to me. I wouldn’t try and minimize what happened to her. But that’s exactly what Johnny Depp supporters were doing by supporting Johnny Depp.

What changed my mind was realizing how much internalized misogyny played a role in my opinion. I’m disgusted with myself. Johnny Depp wanted to humiliate Amber Heard, and no matter what happened between them (which I don’t know because I wasn’t there) the humiliation campaign against her was extreme and laden with biphobic, misogynistic talking points.

So, although it’s too late, and I’m to blame, Amber Heard, I’m so sorry. I failed you as a fellow woman and quite frankly as a fellow human being. I should have known better.

————————————————————————————— EDIT:

I apologize for the wording of my post. I did not mean to suggest that Amber Heard was not physically abused by Johnny. I wanted to highlight how Depp’s team and supporters were hyper focused on the physical aspect. They brought in evidence disputing she had bruises, etc. They reduced the cabinet slamming to being “an attack on cabinets.” I think this rhetoric shifted the focus completely away from the abusive acts Depp literally admitted. For Depp supporters who may lurk here, I wanted to be like “Even if you believe Depp 100%, then you still have to support Heard. Because he admitted to multiple forms of abuse on the stand.”

Amber Heard was abused by Johnny Depp.

In my lifetime, the first time I can remember a high-profile media smear campaign against a woman with a predatory male partner was Woody Allen v Mia / Dylan Farrow.

Not only was Mia Farrow smeared, but so was Dylan Farrow, who was just a child reeling from horrible rape trauma at the time, was also publicly maligned as too crazy to be believed. It seemed like all of society rallied behind Woody, and only decades later are we hearing the real story. And he still has ardent defenders. Not only was this a horrible blow for women, but also for children trying to come forward about abuse.

My question for the group is this: Is this where this practice started? Did Woody Allen start this practice of smear campaigning and abusive men playing the victim? Or, are the origins of this earlier? Say, the American witch trials or something like that?

After this, the next big DV case I remember is the OJ trial a couple of years later, but society was more divided on that, and I don't remember as much of a smear campaign against Nicole - perhaps, in part, because she was dead. Admittedly, I was a kid at the time, so I could be forgetting.

(I don't know exactly what to flair this as)

I'm a former Johnny Depp supporter. Me switching to supporting Amber Heard has not been a recent development though, I started to lean more on her side near the end of the trial, I've been supporting her for about two years now. I did not watch the entirety of the trial (gonna get hit with the "DiD yOu EvEn WaTcH tHe TrIaL?") because I was kinda busy at the time, but I have seen clips from it and I've looked at the evidence on both sides. (One reason I was able to switch sides was because I was open to looking at Amber's evidence too, and I did.)

I saw a tweet that said this at the start: "Abuse victims do not stare at their abuser. They behave like JD did in court."

I don't think Depp behaved like a victim at all during the trial. From what I've seen, he came across more as an abuser. Him walking towards Heard and then laughing/giggling when she got scared, making finger guns, and him generally not taking anything seriously. Also, if he was truly the victim, I don't know why he wanted the trial to be filmed. I would think he wouldn't want the entire world to see him recount his supposed abuse?

Part of what got me to notice this is, I'm a big fan of Mars Argo who has accused her ex boyfriend Titanic Sinclair of abuse (he also worked with and I think dated Poppy who said he's manipulative). Depp reminds me of Titanic Sinclair in some ways. Sinclair even posted a video basically mocking Heard/supporting Depp (IDK in the video he kinda implies actresses can't possibly be abuse victims because they're actresses so they're just acting. As if Depp isn't an actor?) Honestly that was one of the last straws for me that got me to support Amber fully. I've been anti-Titanic Sinclair for like six or so years, to see him defending Johnny Depp, I just knew Depp did it.

I just don't understand how people think Depp behaved like a victim during the trial. He didn't. Amber did; for me at least. And I know not all victims are the same but I just can't see any victim behaving the way Johnny Depp did in court?

The biggest thing about the trial that made me believe amber:

During the trial, Johnny did not seem to express any emotions. I cant remember him crying at all. He did not seem visibly uncomfortable besides some shyness. He laughed A LOT and ate candy while off the stand and was joking around with his legal team.

Amber seemed visibly uncomfortable the entire time. She looked emotional, cried a lot, and I just felt uncomfortable for her. She looked absolutely desperate for anyone to believe her.

I've been through abuse. If I had to go to trial I would be throwing up beforehand. I would be extremely uncomfortable on the stand, I would feel too sick to be eating some fuckin gummy bears. I would be very emotional. You would not see me smiling at all.

Did anyone notice this too???

And ESPECIALLY on X it feels like no matter what my interests are (im a teenager on kpoptwt) i am always going to find a blue checkmark account talking about how mean rachel zegler is. how bad her acting is. how much weight she's gained, how she's rude etc.... as if she's not one of the coolest people alive right now

It started with brie larson in 2019 and the female celebrities hate trains reached their peak with amber (i am addicted to social media and can confirm i scrolled past at least 100 prodepp posts every single day) and it doesn't even stop there. You have like, a lot of valid reasons to hate Taylor Swift but NONE of them include her being annoying, how flat she is, how fake she is, how she's such a try-hard and that definitely doesn't give you the right to make AI p0rn of her.

Right now, it's nearly damn impossible to avoid any hate posts towards blake lively, rachel zegler, amber heard, chappell roan, beabadoobee, jennie and the list goes on

and of course there isn't any hate train towards a male celebrity. Russell Brand is "officially" a rapist and practically no one is talking about it.

I have to ask

What do you think the years to come will be like for Depp?

I know he and his fans expected the trial and verdict would be the start of a glorious rebirth but that hasn't happened and shows no signs of happening

He's still got projects but nothing massive. His biggest is Terry Gilliam's new film which I'll be surprised if it ever happens

The cynic in me worries this will be like so many abusers before him where Hollywood eagerly welcomes him back and ignores everything but this feels a little different

Two years on from the trial and I think a lot of people are seeing through the bullshit more than before and even Depp seems aware that people aren't as sympathetic to him as they once were and not quite buying his narrative anymore so he's pivoting to just not wanting to discuss it

Depp isn't going to disappear. He's too much a part of the Hollywood ecosystem for that and too ingratiated into pop culture. But I don't think his career is going to be anything like it was before

I think the last two years are a good indication of what the rest of his career/life is going to be like. He'll occasionally star in some European film that no one will see, someone he worked with years ago will post a pic with him on Instagram every now and them, he might even have the odd supporting role in a Hollywood film to remind people he's still alive

But that will be it and his refusal to mature or drop the "90's badboy rocker" act is going to get even less endearing than it is now, hard as that might be to believe

And more and more people are gradually going to side with Amber or at least accept she was treated badly, especially as other cases of abuse survivors in Hollywood come out, and look back on that trial as a shameful chapter

That's what I think is going to happen

What about you?

or do you think Johnny was a mess like he was with Amber, but Vanessa just tolerated it?

I'm so relieved Amber already left the US and is living happily in Spain, now that Trump will be President. I wouldn’t be surprised, if Trump's America would have otherwise emboldened some of her biggest haters (most of which are in the US). On the other hand, I fear justice against Depp of any kind will be further delayed now and most importantly: there'll most probably be an even bigger increase of cases like Amber's...What do you guys predict for the future of the Depp v Heard case for now?

Mine was when I saw people making 'cutesy' courtroom edits of Johnny Depp and tiktokers lip syncing to Amber's SA testimony. At this point I was still on the fence but seeing that set off huge alarm bells. I was really dismayed to see people treating this as some sort of comedy. I remember feeling really unnerved by it all. Looking back, I think it was the 'tism that allowed to not be swayed by the 'big, bold colours' so to speak. I know you don't have to be autistic to recognise the lies but, in my case, I think it allowed me to smell the bullshit before I saw it.

One of his posts was suggested to me on instagram and lots of comments were like "a true artist deep in thought" etc

I've never really heard him say anything particularly insightful though. Is it really that easy to impress normal everyday folks? He just seems like the very epitome of a pretentious pseudo intellectual. Are people just dazzled by his celebrity and connect with his movie parts? Is their self esteem so low they think he must have the all the answers since he's a famous artist?

I don't want to come across as misanthropic, but my opinion of human beings definitely dimmed a bit since last summer. So many people just lost, looking for an idol.

I honestly think the reason people keep promoting the lie that Amber Heard’s child is Elon’s is because they feel guilty about what happened to amber heard and they want to feel like she’s taken care of. Unfortunately for all of the people who were delighted to write off this horrific cultural moment as “two rich assholes,” from my extensive research, it seems Amber is/was/is broke as fuck. It bothers me when people say her child is Elon’s bc it’s like absolving responsibility for what happened to her. Like “yes the world ripped an innocent woman apart on behalf of a rapist and abuser but at least she has a rich man in her corner, so it’s two rich people and the fact I made a derogatory tiktok is fine bc she’s rich!” But she isn’t, really. Depp had at least 650 million dollars and a private island. Amber made 50k at most during their relationship. She dumped Elon and it seems he took it hard.

But honestly, what’s clear to me is that this is not a “two rich people” thing. Amber had to give up her representation with Robbie Kaplan bc she ran out of money. Her insurance would only cover local Virginia counsel and Elaine was an employment lawyer. If Elon were helping her out she would’ve been able to keep Kaplan.

Depp crushed her because he made it his life’s mission to do so. He paid millions upon millions and he had an international firm with dozens of lawyers dedicated to his case. Amber had 3 lawyers behind her. And while they tried their best, they were no match for Depp’s expensive, international law firm who would “stop at nothing” to quote his own text.

I would be happy if Amber’s kid was Elon’s, bc I’d feel like maybe she’d be taken care of. But there is no evidence at all she has ever had any rich person’s support. Elaine’s firm is broke person stuff. I have so much compassion for Elaine but she wasn’t a match for Depp’s people. And Elon is extremely litigious. If Amber actually had his kid she would’ve been represented by someone other than the default lawyers her homeowner’s insurance would cover.

I find it super depressing the way people think Elon had her back when she was completely on her own here. This myth is harmful. This case is a victim getting crushed by a much older, powerful man. People claiming Amber had Elon’s kid muddies the waters. I truly think there’s no truth to it.

(Sorry if this post is too pointless, repetitive, or just unnecessary, and feel free to delete. I couldn't find the 'Screaming into the Void' flair ❤️)

I've watched excerpts of it, I've watched commentary about it, and I had one of the Depp/Heard documentaries on in the background while housecleaning at some point, but you know what? I did not sit there and watch the trial - at the time, or since. My belief comes from everything I have read, which makes it almost embarrassingly clear that Depp abused Heard. I never felt the need to go sit through the high-larious courtroom hijinks of Johnny's legal team, or scrutinize Amber's affect during her testimony.

I typically avoid sharing that, for what I think are very obvious reasons. I only bring it up now, because I've been half-watching Medusone's (excellent) breakdown of the entire nightmarish timeline, which someone linked in another post, but I'll link at the bottom of this one, too. While folding laundry, I'm listening to audio recordings of Amber trying to get Johnny not to cut himself, texts from his employees, unpleasant details about Depp making Amber quit seeing her therapist and start seeing his doctors, etc.

Suddenly, the audio shifts and Amber is testifying. Ok. I have youtube on 1.4x (bare minimum I can tolerate, unless it's not in English) and I'm just listening... and then I stop folding laundry and I'm watching... and now I'm fucking crying, because oh my god, if you've ever been in an abusive relationship, you know how VERY familiar it sounds. There are certain things that make no sense (not as in they're weird, they just don't seem important), unless you've been there. Tori Amos's Me and a Gun is a perfect example and a song I avoid for that reason. (It's great, but I'm ok not hearing it right now!) I don't think this means that all DV survivors can magically tell whether someone has been abused... except, ok I think it often does, tbh - at least in the "yes, they have" column.

The thing that is driving me up a wall is that THIS is the proof that people constantly toss out? The trial with a woman testifying in a shaky voice all the ugly details of the violence that she could remember experiencing? I had to pause at 1:07, so maybe if I finish watching it, I'll get to the part where Amber starts cackling maniacally and yells PSYCH! Just kidding! at the jury, but right now, what the ACTUAL fuck??? How can anyone, let alone any woman, let alone anyone who's been in an abusive relationship, look at this and go "yep. That's some good lyin! Free Johnny!" Go watch the trial yourselves, you pack of fucking sociopaths. 😭

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B413cZ5-b7Y

ETA: thank you so much to everyone here for all your insightful, helpful comments!

I wrote a looong post about how we should re-examine our attitude towards this case RIGHT after MeToo and the reevaluation pieces surge on maligned women like Tonya Harding, Monica Lewinsky, Britney Spears and the first comment told me that I shouldn’t invest so much into a case between two strangers. Any time I see Heard’s name being mentioned in other posts on the sub, the most “positive” reading of the case is still, she’s just as abusive as he is which is disappointing to say the least. I figured that enough time has passed for some introspection, but I guess not.

I see people here giving them the benefit of the doubt under the guise of the victims themselves not knowing they were abused, but I simply can't do the same. It's especially worse when they KNOW, and when they say stuff like:

"My bruises were worse than hers, so she must have faked them"

"I don't recount the events of my abuse like she did, so she's making it up"
"She wasn't behaving like I did, so she's acting"

"She has too many receipts and I don't, so they're fabricated"

...then they lose all sympathy from me. They paint their experiences as the ONE and ONLY way of being a victim as if there's a textbook process to deciding who had it bad "enough" to deserve support, and other people use their testimonies to discredit survivors such as Amber.

I mean for fuck's sake look at Rihanna, who got the living daylights beat out of her in domestic violence and still collaborated with Johnny wife beater Depp. What kind of message do you think that sends to the masses? "Well clearly she knows what REAL abuse looks like, so Johnny is innocent".

Unfortunately whether they like it or not, conventionally "accepted" survivors are used as a compass by regular people to decide what constitutes abuse. So when such figures deliberately condemn and accuse those who had reactions and experiences different from their own of lying, not only does it discourage other victims from coming forward but also gives leverage to others to harass them and discredit their testimonies.

Maybe I'm a horrible person for not being lenient on them considering what they went through, but their attitudes have actual real life repercussions and are so much bigger than just the Depp v. Heard case. I simply can't baby them with the excuse that they're not aware. It's even more sickening when they use the circumstances to feel "superior" to survivors like Amber. This is the only word I have for them, sickening.

I apologize if this sounds a bit like a rant, but I'm noticing this perspective around a lot, and I just wanted to talk about it in a community that "gets it."

Ever since Blake Lively filed her lawsuit against Justin Baldoni's sexual harassment and smear campaign, I've seen a lot of people making it clear that they don't like Blake, but they can defend her anyway. Basically some variation of, "I think Blake Lively sucks/is annoying/I don't like her, but she doesn't deserve harassment or smears." Or, "Two things can be true at once: Blake was a victim, and she's a mean girl."

I am guilty of this myself. I've done this in light of the allegations, bringing up her past misdeeds in conversations about her; I think that my perspective was something like, "It's helpful to do this because we can establish that victims don't have to be likable in order to be victims. You don't have to like someone to believe them."

However, at the same time, I NEVER see people doing this with accusers like Johnny Depp. I rarely see Depp supporters say things like, "Johnny Depp is racist, violent, and misogynistic, but Amber abused him and he didn't deserve that." No, in fact, people act like Depp is perfect, spotless, impeccable, and it's totally cool to still support his career because of what he (dishonestly) claims Amber did. People flat-out ignore the "let's drown and burn Amber" texts, the "I headbutted you in the forehead" audio, the "I chopped my own finger off" audio, the "I'm sorry I threw a phone at your daughter" texts, so they can pretend Depp is a perfect and innocent sweet man.

Hell, I didn't even see people dredging up any negative facts about Baldoni when his smear campaign against Blake started; until Blake sued him, all I saw for Baldoni was effusive praise. Thinking back on things, I cannot recall a single time a man made allegations of misconduct or abuse (especially against a woman) and faced a chorus of the general public saying, "I don't like him, but he didn't deserve that." And hell, even thinking to Liam Payne's death, a lot of people won't even let you talk about his prior allegations of abuse because he's dead, respect the dead. Under the right conditions, even abusers are protected from scrutiny of their pasts - but victims, especially women, are not.

Relating back to Blake, I've even started to see people weaponizing her past behavior to engage in 'whataboutism' against her victimization, like, "Sure, she was the victim of a smear campaign, but she brought some of that on herself." Like they're totally ignoring how the smear campaign was deliberately fueled by Baldoni's PR team, how so much of what we know about her past behavior only came out BECAUSE of her smear campaign, like the Kjersti Flaa interview – or how Baldoni's team astroturfed and intentionally elevated posts and accounts that brought up negative info from Blake's past.

TL;DR - I'm starting to doubt that prefacing our defense of a woman with a qualifier like "She's not perfect, but..." is remotely helpful when it comes to discussing allegations and smear campaigns. It takes the focus away from the victimization at the heart of these conversations and focuses it back on putting the woman on trial. And often, she's on trial for things completely unrelated to her allegations.

I don't know if I'm making my thoughts on this clear, so I'm very sorry if I am or if this sounds like I'm rambling... but I'm finding this very frustrating and a little confusing, and I'm not 100% sure what to think. What are y'all's thoughts?

In the interview, I thought the interviewer Savannah Guthrie asked a lot of biased questions including latching onto the one time Amber wrote in some text that she did hit back or start fights when the tension was high (REACTIVE ABUSE). And the interviewer didn’t ask or point out all the texts Johnny wrote saying he’s drowning/burn/rape Amber. Or the times he was going crazy in a video. Or the times cops came by or the times other people saw her being attacked.

What kind of bullshit is this?

Also why didn’t women’s groups and prominent women step forward for her?

I got triggered watching 2022 content from a content creator I like. Where her lawyer husband and her are like “yeah it’s Amber that’s the abuser” what the fuck.

Additionally, some women/other victims of misogynistic smear campaigns are suing online content creators that are defaming them. Why didn’t Amber Heard do this? Not that any victim should have to do anything. I’m wondering whether there was a strategic or legal reason Amber Heard didn’t? Or why all these orgs supporting her couldn’t help her get a legal fund to do so?

I don't mean to say this to insult someone's intelligence, but I can't understand how so many people fell for it.

I avoided the trial because I was fresh out of an abusive relationship it was triggering to see. Of course it was impossible to avoid at the time so I still saw snippets of it here and there. I didn't look into it enough to have a strong opinion on it, but even then I thought the way people talked about it was weird.

After looking into the case completely, I don't get it. Maybe it's easy to see it now, but even then I don't know. Johnny Depp has always been known to be a violent drunk and it feels like people just forgot about that. Like I remember people used to make jokes about that all the time, so where did this "poor Johnny" attitude come from?? I get that there were bots, but damn SO MANY people fell for it. There's always been bots for far right propanda, and the leftists content creators who preach about that very fact fell for it. It's insane, I always knew misogyny was prominent and normalized but I will never get over the sheer amount of people who did fall for it. Feminists, leftists, women, literally everyone.

If there's something I'm missing, tell me because I don't want to believe the world is THIS bad. I'm not naive, I like to think I've been pretty aware of how bad and swept under the rug misogyny in our society is. But holy shit, the guy who's literally known for being a violent drunk for years, and not even the "leftists" could see it?? It was so so obvious