Amber Heard calls Johnny Depp 'fantastic actor' after trial

Amber Heard says she doesn’t blame jury for Johnny Depp verdict: ‘He’s a fantastic actor’

‘You cannot tell me ... this has been fair,’ Amber Heard says in her first interview since a jury found for Johnny Depp in their defamation trial.

By Christi CarrasStaff Writer

June 13, 2022 11:03 AM PT

Amber Heard doesn’t harbor any resentment toward the jurors who found for Johnny Depp in the former spouses’ defamation trial. But she doesn’t believe it was a fair fight, either.

In a Monday preview of her first TV interview since the trial concluded earlier this month, the “Aquaman” actor told NBC’s “Today” show that she doesn’t “care what one thinks about me or what judgments you want to make about what happened in the privacy of my own home in my marriage behind closed doors.”

“I don’t presume the average person should know those things, and so I don’t take it personally,” she continued.

“But even somebody who is sure I’m deserving of all this hate and vitriol — even if you think that I’m lying — you still couldn’t look me in the eye and tell me that you think, on social media, there’s been a fair representation. You cannot tell me that you think that this has been fair.”

At the bitter end of their turbulent defamation trial, jurors in Fairfax, Va., awarded $15 million in damages to Depp and $2 million in damages to Heard. However, Judge Penney Azcarate reduced Depp’s total to about $10.4 million, per Virginia’s statutory cap.

Throughout the court proceedings, which were livestreamed on CourtTV and elsewhere, super fans of Depp flooded social media with pro-Depp and anti-Heard hashtags and sentiments. Supporters of Heard were also vocal online but largely drowned out by Depp’s supporters, some of whom even cheered for him in person outside the courthouse.

“How could [the jury] not come to that conclusion?” Heard asked “Today” anchor Savannah Guthrie.

“They had sat in those seats and heard through over three weeks of nonstop, relentless testimony from paid employees and — towards the end of the trial — randos, as I say.”

Among the witnesses who testified in the final stages of the trial was model Kate Moss, who debunked a long-standing rumor that her ex-boyfriend, Depp, once shoved her down a flight of stairs. Moss’ testimony was a major loss for Heard, who name-checked Moss while invoking the staircase myth earlier in the trial.

“I don’t blame [the jury],” Heard told Guthrie. “I actually understand. [Depp is] a beloved character, and people feel they know him. He’s a fantastic actor.”

When Guthrie pushed back, pointing out that the jury’s “job is to not be dazzled by” Depp’s celebrity, Heard doubled down.

“Again, how could they — after listening to three and a half weeks of testimony about how I was a noncredible person ... believe a word that came out of my mouth?” she contended.

During their defamation trial — which hinged primarily on a 2018 op-ed for the Washington Post that identified Heard as “a public figure representing domestic abuse” — Depp and Heard traded disturbing allegations of domestic violence.

After the verdict was read, Heard warned of a return to “a time when a woman who spoke up and spoke out could be publicly shamed and humiliated,” while a “humbled” Depp thanked the jury for giving him his “life back.”

Heard’s interview with Guthrie will air in its entirety Friday on NBC’s “Dateline.”