After the conclusion of the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trial, Heard gave an interview to NBC which was previewed on the Today show. Interviewer Savannah Guthrie pointed out that the jury had listened to the evidence and trial and simply hadn’t believed her. Heard replied that she didn’t blame them after listening to weeks of testimony supporting Depp. “He’s a beloved character and people feel they know him,” she said of Depp.
Today, one of the jurors in the case spoke to Good Morning America. He wasn’t identified or shown on screen but did tell GMA that the reason Heard essentially lost the dueling defamation claims is that jurors just didn’t believe she was telling the truth.
“It didn’t come across as believable,” he said. “It seemed like she was able to flip the switch on her emotions. She would answer one question and she would be crying and two seconds later she would turn ice cold. It didn’t seem natural.”
Depp, he said, “just seemed a little more real in terms of how he responded to questions.”…
“They had their husband-wife arguments. They were both yelling at each other. I don’t think that makes either of them right or wrong. That’s what you do when you get into an argument, I guess. 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,” he said…
He blamed Heard’s legal team for giving her poor advice, such as looking directly at the jury when responding to questions. “All of us were very uncomfortable” at that, he said.
One of the things which has been raised repeatedly by reporters is the negativity aimed at Heard on social media. Vox dubbed it a #MeToo backlash and Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz wrote a story accusing content creators of cashing in on the trial. But according to the juror who spoke to GMA, none of that had any impact on the jury. “Social media did not impact us. We followed the evidence. We didn’t take into account anything outside [the courtroom],” he said.
Meanwhile, the back and forth between Depp and Heard continues in the media. Depp’s attorneys criticized Heard for giving the interview in the first place:
“It’s unfortunate that while Johnny is looking to move forward with his life, the defendant and her team are back to repeating, reimagining and re-litigating matters that have already been decided by the court and a verdict that was unequivocally decided by a jury in Johnny’s favor,” his team said.
For her part, Heard claims she has released detailed notes which prove she was telling the truth about some of Depp’s abuse.
“There’s a binder worth of years of notes dating back to 2011 from the very beginning of my relationship that were taken by my doctor, who I was reporting the abuse to,” Heard added in the clip.
The documents, which are shown on-screen, detail one 2012 instance in which Depp allegedly “hit her, threw her against a wall and threatened to kill her,” according to “Dateline.”
The documents were never admitted in the trial on the grounds that they were hearsay. The full interview with Heard will air on Dateline Friday night.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member