The trial of Johnny Depp: What it says about celebrities and the search for truth
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The trial of Johnny Depp: What information technology says nigh celebrities and the search for truth
The actor's libel trial against the Great britain's The Sun paper was a surreal, showbiz grudge-match. There were drugs, financial chaos, misogynistic texts and Amber Heard beingness booed – was this inside look at Hollywood's celebrities too much?
Actor Johnny Depp gestures every bit he arrives at the High Court in London, Britain July 28, 2020. REUTERS/Toby Melville
I arrived at the Royal Courts of Justice two hours early. A Johnny Depp fan rolled her eyes: I was far too late. Courtroom number xiii had fewer than a dozen seats for the public, and she and her friends had been queueing for them nigh since dawn. I didn't stand a chance.
These diehards came to the trial of Depp confronting The Sun newspaper every day for three weeks. Each ane could have made a short story about our relationship with celebrity. A adult female told me she'd loved Depp ever since he visited her sick daughter at Great Ormond Street Hospital.
Another said she was drawn to his case because her relative had been wrongly accused of domestic violence. "It can happen to anyone," she said. They loved Johnny because he was different to them, they loved him considering he was the aforementioned.
These so-called Deppheads handed flowers to their hero when he arrived at the courtroom each morning, and they booed his ex-married woman Amber Heard whenever she appeared.
They were just 1 more eye-opening part in what now ranks among the more extraordinary libel trials in English legal history, and surely the nigh boggling this century. Only if you lot take been on a month-long Zoom call can you accept missed it.
Depp, ane of the movies' most mercurial talents, sued The Sun, until recently United kingdom's biggest-selling newspaper, over an stance column that labelled him a "wife-beater" who had left Heard fearing for her life. He argued that his reputation had gone from "Cinderella to Quasimodo in 0.6 seconds", and that he had lost his lucrative part in Pirates Of The Caribbean area sequels every bit a result.
A SURREAL TRIAL
The trial, which concluded on Jul 28, was and so surreal that at times I wondered if I had taken as many drugs as Depp himself. It was a show-business grudge-match playing out in a building older than Hollywood itself.
Information technology was a mixture of #MeToo, domestic violence, celebrity gossip, free voice communication, and drug education advisory. It ploughed on, with witnesses beamed in from the US and Australia, even equally almost everything else in central London remained close by the pandemic.
Mr Justice Nicol's judgment is not expected until the autumn, but the public verdict is already in: The trial was a tawdry spectacle. Highly paid barristers debated who had defecated in Depp's bed. They quizzed Heard'south sis on how she and Depp snorted cocaine with a tampon applicator. They argued over whether Heard had an extramarital affair with the billionaire Elon Musk.
"I experience like an atrocious person for being here," an out-of-work theatre designer told me, as she angled for a picture of Depp. A number of those outside court were furloughed workers, with fourth dimension to kill. Hollywood has declined to release blockbuster movies during lockdown; this trial provided us with a more salacious celebrity fix, something to distract u.s. from the mundanity.
Was this really a proper use of the High Court? Was it off-white for Heard to have her allegations examined in a case where she wasn't a claimant or a defendant but just a witness? Could anyone possibly emerge as a winner from such wreckage?
"Only a moron in a hurry would entertain the thought of having the pause-up of their relationship picked over by two QCs and a estimate, in full public view," says Mark Stephens, a media lawyer at the house Howard Kennedy. "The terminal celebrity to successfully sue for libel without collateral damage was Liberace in the 1950s."
The heyday of libel trials was the 1980s and 1990s, with claimants such as the musician Elton John and the cricketer Ian Botham. These days legal costs are college, potential payouts are lower, and the media has a stronger defense of responsible journalism. And then well-known figures, such every bit Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, are more likely to sue for invasion of privacy – trying to seal embarrassing disputes, rather than resolve them.
Simply permit me play devil'due south advocate. There's something more tawdry than libel trials and it's a place where libel restraints barely exist.
In the United states, Elon Musk is able to call a British cave diver, involved in the heroic rescue of schoolchildren, "pedo guy". Public figures tin only win libel battles if they tin prove imitation allegations were fabricated with "actual malice". So, during the 2022 presidential election, Democratic officials were defendant of running a child sex activity ring from a Washington pizza restaurant.
Recently, Television receiver stations about aired an interview accusing elevation infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci of creating coronavirus and shipping it to China. This is what happens when the residual betwixt gratis voice communication and truth goes awry.
Cheers to social media, we are all accustomed to half-truths and apartment-out lies. We hear rumours and allegations. We aren't sure whether we should be boycotting Woody Allen films or non. The Depp trial promised something tantalising – the truth. At least a truth.
DEPP A DOMESTIC ABUSER, HEARD A FANTASIST?
Some of the best lawyers in England and Wales would determine whether Depp was a domestic abuser, or whether his ex-wife Heard was a fantasist. Given that Depp is still a major motion picture star, featuring in JK Rowling's Fantastic Beasts film franchise, the respond seemed worth knowing.
Of form, the reason the trial made headlines, twenty-four hour period later solar day, was considering information technology drew back the curtain on the penthouses and film sets, not to mention the meeting where Depp's directorate apparently told him his U.s.$650m (South$893.8m) in earnings had evaporated, leaving him with US$100m in tax liabilities. Withal, it wasn't just voyeurism. It was due process.
"There is no existent room for a center ground here. I side is plainly lying, and to an extraordinary extent," said Depp's lawyers in their opening statement. I was gripped by this trial for the same reason that some people are gripped by truthful-crime podcasts. Where did the truth lie?
Since the #MeToo movement rose to prominence in 2017, the film mogul Harvey Weinstein has been sentenced to 23 years for rape, and the comedian Nib Cosby to between three and 10 years for indecent attack. Men in media, business organisation and politics accept been held to account for their abuse.
The Sunday'southward commodity most Depp put the allegations against him in the context of #MeToo. But different with well-nigh #MeToo allegations, the accuser here is the accused'south ex-wife. Depp and Heard met in 2009 through the picture The Rum Diary. They started dating in 2011, married in 2022 and divorced in 2016.
Towards the end of their 15-month spousal relationship, Heard filed for a restraining order. The order, which was granted without Depp existence able to respond, as is usual practice, was the basis for The Sun article.
Heard subsequently wrote a Washington Post opinion piece, in which she didn't mention Depp by proper name merely spoke of having become "a public figure representing domestic abuse". Depp sued The Sun in the UK; he is as well suing Heard directly for US$50m in Virginia, where the Washington Postal service is printed.
This is not a typical case of abuse of power, although Heard has emphasised she was half Depp'southward historic period when they met (23 years to 46) and that he had exalted condition in Hollywood. Information technology may take the form of a libel claim, but no journalists gave evidence. Nearly days, information technology looked more like a domestic violence instance.
Whereas many #MeToo cases have relied on the testimony of various women to build watertight cases, Heard stood lone. She alleged 14 divide occasions of physical violence by Depp. He denied them – indeed, he said he was the driveling party.
HE SAID, SHE SAID – BUT MORE COMPLICATED
It was a "He said, She said" scenario. Except, given the ubiquity of photographic camera phones, text messages and celebrity entourages, it was more than complicated.
A "He said, She said" set-up suggests that ane side is telling the truth, and the other isn't. In reality, both Depp and Heard sat in the wooden witness box, their Hollywood looks juxtaposed with sets of A4 band-binders, and their accounts were severely tested under cantankerous-examination.
In his five days of testimony, Depp depicted himself every bit a "Southern admirer", just to be confronted past gruesome text letters including ane in which he had joked to a friend: "Let'south burn down Amber!"
He struggled to remember details of a flight in which he was alleged to have passed out, a relevant point given Heard alleges that his blackouts are part of the reason he doesn't recall being abusive. He changed his account to accept that he may take headbutted Heard, albeit every bit a "standoff" while fending her off.
Heard, meanwhile, claimed to have only hit Depp in self-defence. But one of her own recordings caught her maxim: "I did start a concrete fight." Heard told the court that one of Depp'southward attacks had caused "tons of damage" to their penthouse. But her account was contradicted by two police officers, who said they saw cypher of the sort when called to the scene.
To believe that Depp is not a wife-beater, you accept to think that Heard fabricated allegations over a number of years. You lot would need to explicate the cuts that some witnesses in one case noticed on Heard's arms, and Depp'due south reference, on another occasion, to a "fight on the train which was physical".
To believe Heard's account, you have to tally her merits of two black optics and a broken nose, following "one of the worst and well-nigh violent nights" of their relationship, with one stylist's testimony that at that place was no bruising and a make-up artist's account that in that location was "minimal discolouration" and a cut lip. You would need to explain why a nurse didn't find damage to her scalp, afterwards Heard claimed Depp had pulled out clumps of her hair.
Ane shortcut might be to trust Depp, on the basis that he wouldn't have brought the case unless he was certain of himself. But historically suing for libel is not a neglect-safe indicator that you are telling the truth.
In 1895, Oscar Wilde sued the Marquess of Queensberry over the allegation that he solicited other men. His instance collapsed, he was jailed for gross indecency, and he died in exile presently after.
In 1995, the former Conservative junior defence government minister Jonathan Aitken sued The Guardian for alleging he'd accepted hospitality from the Saudi royal family. His case also collapsed, and he was jailed for perjury.
REPURCUSSIONS FOR #METOO?
Glory fandom offers a simple mode out – yous believe his account or hers. Watching the trial, I wondered if at that place might be a middle ground after all, where both parties might have lost control in the course of a stormy relationship. Would that exist enough to call Depp a married woman-beater? Or Heard a fantasist?
Domestic violence campaigners have an clashing relationship with the legal organization. On the one hand, they want abusers to be brought to justice. On the other, they are historically sceptical that the courts can deliver it.
Heard could claim a double disadvantage: first, an declared victim of domestic abuse, an offence for which bear witness is often hard, and second, her claims discipline to a libel suit in London, occasionally known as the defamation capital of the world.
She also had no command over the style The Sun put its case, pregnant that she could not insist they call an proficient witness on domestic violence, for instance. "I did not file this lawsuit, and despite its significance, I would take preferred not to have been in courtroom," she said at the end of the trial. She spoke of the pain of reliving the worst moments of her human relationship with Depp.
However, it struck me that there were some aspects that helped Heard. The fact that Depp sued The Dominicus meant her case was put by someone with deep pockets. Both sides are likely to take spent several million pounds on lawyers, whereas Heard, who gave her US$7m divorce settlement to clemency, needed financial help to pay for her ain counsel to attend court each mean solar day.
In a criminal case, Depp's domestic abuse would have to be shown across reasonable incertitude. Libel law operates to a lower standard. The Sun would ordinarily have to show the truth of its allegations on the remainder of probabilities, although Depp's lawyers have argued that a higher standard should apply.
The other factor that may have helped Heard, and The Sun, is the lack of a jury. Juries have been finer abolished from English language libel trials since 2014, on the basis that they cost more, do not provide total written judgments and are unsuited to determining complex disputes over what words mean.
Depp's celebrity might have swung a jury; it is less likely to swing the judge. "Of all the judges on the High Court bench, Mr Justice Nicol must be the one who knows least about Hollywood and celebrities," said one senior QC. "He'd probably never heard of any of these people."
Certainly, when Heard said she wouldn't have left habitation without make-up because she was in Los Angeles, Nicol played the ingénue: "You're just going to have to explicate the conjunction of those two things." (To the relief of many people, the judge has too made clear he has trivial involvement in the much-covered matter of who defecated on the bed.)
Even a approximate is sometimes left to guesstimate who is telling the truth. In 2022 Andrew Mitchell, a former Conservative cabinet minister, sued The Sun afterward it alleged he had called police in Downing Street "plebs"; he lost after the judge decided, in the same courtroom thirteen, that a police force officer did non have "the wit, the imagination or the inclination" to fabricate the allegation.
If Heard loses, it will non necessarily have wide repercussions for the #MeToo motility. This is a particular example, about a detail piece of journalism that (rightly or wrongly) assumed guilt. Heard could hope for a better consequence in the U.s.a. libel trial, which is due to start in Jan, though the legal battle is consuming some of the most important years of her career.
Depp testified that fame was 'the life of a avoiding', and that his own proper name now 'sounds foreign' to him
REMEMBER MEL GIBSON AND LOUIS CK?
If Depp loses, the fiscal hit will probably be manageable. This is a homo who once happily spent US$3m firing the ashes of Hunter S Thompson, author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, out of a cannon. His career volition probably survive too, so long as information technology is not a definitive defeat, says Greg Jenner, writer of Dead Famous, a history of celebrity.
Mel Gibson, who has a history of anti-Semitic remarks including questioning the number of Jews who died in the Holocaust, continues to appear in films. Louis CK, the comedian who has admitted to sexual misconduct, has begun a comeback. Men's careers often seem more than Teflon than women's.
For those who wanted a celebrity fix, I wonder if this trial has delivered. Depp was a rare combination in Hollywood of beauty, charisma and counterculture. "He'south this ethereal kooky oddball," says Jenner.
We heard well-nigh his problems with prescription and recreational drugs, his financial anarchy, his misogynistic text conversations. He and Heard grew upward in homes marked by domestic abuse, and despite their riches, their lives remained marked by domestic arguments years later.
We want to get behind the mask of A-list celebrities, just when we do, nosotros suddenly wish we hadn't. A woman with a Johnny Depp Forever tattoo told me she had sat out her idol's own testimony on the basis information technology would be too painful to scout. Hollywood sells escapism, but the reality is often rather sad.
The Depp trial has at to the lowest degree shown usa this truth. Any the judgment says, it is likely to come up closer to revealing the graphic symbol of Depp and Heard than a thousand celebrity magazines have.
By Henry Mance © 2022 The Fiscal Times
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