Featured Image Credit: Today Show
Topics: Johnny Depp, Celebrity
Gabriella Ferlita
Amber Heard has broken her silence on the 'unfair' verdict during her trial with Johnny Depp.
Earlier this month, the jury decided that Depp won the defamation case against Heard, with the Pirates of the Caribbean actor being awarded $15 million in damages. This was made up of $10m in compensatory damages and $5m in punitive damages, later capped at a total of $10.35 million by Judge Penny Azcarate.
Now, the Aquaman star has opened up about the trial outcome in an interview on NBC's Today show.
Amber told presenter Savannah Guthrie that the hate she received online during the trial was not a 'fair representation' of herself. Watch the clip here:
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Elsewhere in the interview, the actor expressed that she understood why the jury at Fairfax County Courthouse made their verdict in favor of her ex-husband.
"I don’t blame them,” Heard told the presenter. “I actually understand. He’s a beloved character and people feel they know him. He’s a fantastic actor.”
Despite the horrific social media treatment Amber was subjected to online, she even appeared to brush that off, saying that she doesn't 'take it personally'.
Amber said in the interview: "I don’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."
During the trial, onlookers did not shy away from expressing their opinions on Amber. In shops across the US, people placed tip money in jars labelled ‘Team Depp’ or ‘Team Heard’. There were memes, TikTok videos, and YouTube reactions on the actor.
Previously, Tyla spoke to a sexual assault survivor about the treatment of Amber Heard and why these memes are not a joke.
Anu Verma told us: “The fact that the whole hearing is publicised and used as entertainment as well. To me, it shouldn’t have been so exposed.
“It’s led to the public really not taking this seriously anymore and I fear that the public thinks that it’s going to be okay to abuse each other because everyone just finds it a joke, and it’s not a joke. It’s so serious.”
Seeing seeing these allegations of sexual abuse reduced to memes could hold her and many other survivors back in their healing, she explained.
“It hurts. It really hurts because I know the impact that was having on me, and I just feel to not take it seriously is only going to make the trauma worse [for survivors],” Anu said. You can read more on that here.