For the first time since reaching a guilty verdict in Johnny Depp’s defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife Amber Heard, a member of the jury has spoken publicly about the case. In an interview with Good Morning America that aired today (June 16th), an anonymous male juror said that he didn’t find Heard’s reactions in the courtroom “believable,” going so far as to say her emotional testimony was full of “crocodile tears.”
“The crying, the facial expressions that [Heard] had, the staring at the jury… all of us were very uncomfortable,” the juror said, opining that “her story didn’t add up.” “She would answer one question and she would be crying and two seconds later she would turn ice cold. Some of us used the expression ‘crocodile tears.'”
As for Depp, “a lot of the jury felt what he was saying, at the end of the day, was more believable,” the juror added. “He just seemed a little more real in terms of how he was responding to questions. His emotional state was very stable throughout.”
The juror also brought up the court’s discovery that Heard had not followed through on her promise to donate her $7 million divorce settlement to charity, and corroborated the claim made by Depp’s lawyers last week that social media had no role in swaying the jury’s decision. “We followed the evidence,” he said. “Myself and at least two other jurors don’t use Twitter or Facebook. Others who had it made a point not to talk about it.”
But despite ultimately leaning in Depp’s favor, the juror agreed that the pair “were both abusive to each other,” saying: “I don’t think that makes either of them right or wrong. But to rise to the level of what she was claiming, there wasn’t enough or any evidence that really supported what she was saying.”
Heard also spoke out about the trial for the first time this week, during an interview with NBC News’ Savannah Guthrie. Calling the trial “the most humiliating and horrible thing [she’s] been through,” she doubled-down on her testimony and blamed social media chatter for affecting the case’s outcome.
“This trial is an example of social media gone haywire, gone amuck,” Heard told Guthrie. “The jury is not immune to that. I think even the most well-intentioned juror… it would have been impossible to avoid this.”
In case you need a refresher: Depp filed his $50 million defamation lawsuit in response to his Heard’s 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post with the headline: “I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change.” Although the piece never mentioned Depp by name, the actor claimed that it was obviously about him, hurting his reputation. Heard then countersued for $100 million, arguing that Depp’s lawyer defamed her by telling the press that her allegations were false.
The jury awarded Depp $10 million in compensatory damages and an additional $5 million in punitive damages. For her countersuit, the jury granted Heard $2 million total, all for compensatory damages, with no punitive damages assessed.
