The Amber Heard / Johnny Depp Case

I think women normally get away with it more easily if I'm honest. When you see social experiments it's always people helping the woman and laughing at/filming the male victim. But I think the reaction is as you say a backlash to the frequency with which we encounter male abusers. The "see... women do it too" trope.

I think they're. Both

Doh, posted too early. Was going to say they're both idiots and I find it hard to extrapolate much wider significance from this case.

I don’t think it is at all rare for couples to be “as bad as each other” but I do think that is beside the point.

Depo is the aggressor in that he is continuing to abuse Heard by attempting to manipulate the legal system.

He is obsessed with destroying her.

I think some types of people really enjoy a rich powerful man dragging a woman through court like this. Especially a woman who isn't a "perfect victim", who is bisexual, who doesn't behave meekly in public and so on. There's a lot of wilful ignorance around the court cases themselves - people not understanding that this is a civil case not a criminal one, not understanding that Depp has chosen to pursue these cases. Not understanding that it's about whether or not Depp was abusive, not whether Heard was (too) or not.

I agree he is obsessed with destroying her and appears to have a large fan base who agree and see no wrong in his poor behaviour. Her behaviour included abusive words and potential actions, but she appears to be moving on while he wants to continue arguing.

Tbh it's all such a rareified arena that I'm struggling to get it to cohere with anything like real life. I mean I just can't relate it to anything. It's a nonsense, a circus. He's a fist happy prick and she shit the bed. So their behaviour is like a couple of vagrants but they keep on hashing out the fight because they've got loads of money. Does anyone even care that much now? It feels like it's been going on forever, just both of them going 'he said she said' and the only reason it's a story is because they're rich.

It is Depp that started and continued the court cases. Amber Heard was a witness in the UK case because the defendant was actually the Sun newspaper who called Depp a wife beater. She had no ability to start or end that court case.

The current US court case was again started by Depp in response to an article written by Heard where she described herself as a survivor of domestic abuse, without naming Depp. He has taken her to court accusing her of libel, and she has to therefore defend herself, again not her choice and she had no ability to start or end that case.

This obsession with the bizarre bed and shit story is mad. It's not a proven fact that it was Heard that did this, it's an unproven allegation by Depp and yet so many people quote it as fact. It's just a grim stick to beat her with.

The whole thing is staggeringly unedifying. It's about money and reputation, not about domestic abuse itself.

I find it difficult to see any good in amber. She is like my abusive ex. He would treat me like shit then record me when I eventually cracked and lost it. Made me look like I was the abuser.

Yes, Heard is clearly very unlikeable and has plenty of her own issues. Regardless, the judge in the UK court case found it proven in 12 out of 14 incidences that Depp was abusive. So the Sun's description of him as a "wife beater" was not libellous and was in fact a true statement.

Agree with this, 100%

I was very neutral to begin with but I’ve been watching the court case online.

I really don’t believe Amber was a victim at all. She is definitely abusive. I don’t think Depp was innocent at all but I think there was a difference in the type and level of abuse. Ignoring the shit story, the drug witholding, lying about her makeup, the pictures of her bloodied/scabby knuckles at the fashion show which coincides with the dates he had black eyes… it just seems like he is the victim if there had to be one.

I do understand why he has taken her to court - he lost all his sponsorships (bar Dior) and movies. She lost nothing. As a victim of abuse, I would feel enraged and I suppose if you’ve nothing left to lose…

Yes and the chorus of “She’s just as bad”, jeez, she has never claimed to have behaved perfectly. It is Depp who keeps going with this circus.

Quite aside from the unedifying spectacle that this is, it is so tone deaf, the grossly privileged courting their fans against a backdrop of war, pandemic and climate crises. If ever there was a snapshot encapsulating how messed up the world is, this would have to be it. Fuck human life, fuck the environment, let’s all watch two badly behaved brats shake down their brief marriage.

@Tigerandthetea what about the part where he said he'd destroy her, joked about burning her to death? He doesn't come across as a victim.

Quite, he comes across as a bully. Even after the divorce he is bullying her.

Let’s be honest here , Amber Heard does not come across very likeable at all, but does that mean she is a Abusive violent woman?

Those defending him talk on one side and never talk about his behaviour. Never acknowledge that in the audio recordings she took that he never denies the abuse she refers to receiving.

They say it's her fault she provoked him or made him do it. That he is a soft and vulnerable man and she is nasty women. Yet the previous judge found that 12/14 of the abuse incidents towards her happened so whatever anyone says about her, he is an abuser.

It reminds me of the situations when a raped women is stoned to death and blamed for inciting the man, in cultures where men can do no wrong.

By her own admittance she is

I don't understand, with all the money they both have, why one of them didn't walk away from what was clearly a very disfunctional relationship (understatement). Neither of them come out of this well.

I'm not really sure where I stand on the whole case from a feminist point of view. I don't see it as representative of other domestic abuse cases really.

I agree with you

I agree with @StorminNorma. It's such an odd case that it doesn't easily translate to normal behaviour.

My friends abuser used to use the whole 'whos going to believe a big man like you gets abused by me'

I think they are both toxic but I hate the fact that people are rushing to his defence. He's an arsehole.

They were clearly both abusive. As bad as each other, I don't know how anyone can take sides in this, neither of them come out good.

I think if you have seen abuse first-hand you recognise it as a pattern of control and although Johnny behaved badly at times, it's obvious he did not have the hallmarks of an abuser. For example he paid to have Amber's family live with them - abusers isolate. As another example he tried to leave during fights - abusers will not do this.

I experienced a very similar situation with a male in real life who, like Johnny had a troubled childhood. He met a woman who was an abuser and, like Amber, she deemed him someone she felt she could make use of so she set about manipulating him into a relationship.

She ingratiated himself in a similar way when he was in a low point and, similarly, spending time with her at work in a close environment. First pretending to be his best friend, keen to talk about her marriage breakup and troubled childhood, Feigning the same interests and a deep connection as friends - Johnny's statement described the same with Amber.

Once ingratiated as a "best friend", she pushed for emotional dependency and isolated him from other friends and family by being insistent on spending every minute with him, which felt flattering. She laid the kindness and the adoration on very thick then encouraged him to consume vast amounts of alcohol which led to sex after some months.

After that, she pressured him to let her move in with him. Showing up at his door drunk and crying, playing the damsel in distress and asking to sleep on his sofa because she 'needed him'. Over a short time he found himself more or less living with her, and once in this position of trust the real her came out.

She would have rages at him when he would not do what she wanted, she isolated him completely from others, she began to threaten to hurt herself if he didn't love her back, she began to threaten to expose personal secrets he had disclosed and she spread false information about him to his loved ones so they cut him off.

After a few months of this "relationship" he was on medication for stress, drinking heavily and had come to believe he was responsible for her abuse (which he did not recognise as abuse). He was made to believe the problem was she loved him so much, and he didn't return those feelings so it was his refusal to commit to her which caused her behaviour.

If he tried to leave she would say she could not live without him, or make threats, or beg for him to look after her and he almost lost his job due to things getting so crazy. She hit him, she smashed his property, she deprived him of sleep, she faked pregnancies, she lied to everyone about him, she controlled his communication, she gaslighted and made him ill.

Of course there were times he got angry, times he locked himself in the bathroom to escape (just like Johnny) and times he wrestled her to get her away from him but it did not make him an abuser- this was self defence.

When he finally got help to leave, she initially stalked and harassed him to the point the police had to get involved, and then she tried everything possible to ruin his life - from false allegations to flying monkeys.

This man's life was ruined, and whatever his faults he did not deserve it. Two years later he has PTSD and flinches if people raise their voice. He suffers from auto immune disease and is tired and sick and the time. It's been really awful.

I wish he had known two years ago that men like Johnny Depp experienced this too because he believed there was something wrong with him, he didn't understand it was abuse and what Johnny is doing might save many men from the same.

As above - if you have seen abuse - you know this is what it looks like. The victim always comes out a shadow of who they were.