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Johnny Depp Libel Case

I'm just reading a little more on this now, because I've been aware of just talking about the fragments of what I (think I) know.

It's messier and worse than I would have ever guessed - different accounts looking like events from completely different universes, filtered through a fractured prism, then re-filtered back and forth through legacy media, social media and the lenses of the culture wars.

Everyone talking and talking, always completely past each other.

Doesn't seem like anything any good can come from, however you slice it. :(
 
I am wondering what is supposed to motivate women to go out and lie about abuse. I mean, where are all these women who have allegedly done so well financially, career-wise and personally by alleging abuse? I suppose they just took the public destruction of their character and the money (from somewhere or other) and waltzed off into the sunset?
 
I am wondering what is supposed to motivate women to go out and lie about abuse. I mean, where are all these women who have allegedly done so well financially, career-wise and personally by alleging abuse? I suppose they just took the public destruction of their character and the money (from somewhere or other) and waltzed off into the sunset?
Not sure. Might be worth looking into the Craig Charles case and see what the motivation was there. Or the Hamiltons. That was a bizarre one
 
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Was that a definite “he was innocent” case or a “not proven” one?
Innocent. I recall it at the time the woman later admitted she made it up. Got paid £50k by the News of the World.

Can't find any details of it now though really
 
One of those telling things, I think, that when asked for real examples we're transported back to 1995 and a tabloid sleaze payout. Almost as though, like many of the the tabloids' moral panics, what we're actually talking about is a small minority of cases which get the full magnifying glass and cited prominently over and over as justification for the idea that a thing happens often. Also in this series: That time Boris Becker accused a woman of stealing his sperm, Islamic terrorism, muslim paedos ...
 
One of those telling things, I think, that when asked for real examples we're transported back to 1995 and a tabloid sleaze payout. Almost as though, like many of the the tabloids' moral panics, what we're actually talking about is a small minority of cases which get the full magnifying glass and cited prominently over and over as justification for the idea that a thing happens often. Also in this series: That time Boris Becker accused a woman of stealing his sperm.

They are very much a small minority of cases.
Maybe we should stop having trials.

Just straight to sentencing.
 
The outcomes of individual cases wouldn't matter so much if we were collectively a bit better at gauging the difference between a thing, or cluster of things, happening and the actual broad likelihood of it happening. How many cases of women pretending they've been abused to get back at a person are there? Not many, for a number of reasons. But every single one gets added to a stereotype through repetition and their good fit to cultural tropes. Which then acts to repress the ability of women who have been abused to be heard (this, in turn, is our fault for building the sandcastle, rather than theirs for the individual act).
 
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Sadly I know someone who was raped by a high profile celebrity when she was a young woman. It’s not my story to tell but hearing her tell it, and about the repercussions, I have no doubt that it happened. Legal action was squashed and he got away with it.

Whilst any false allegations are awful, I would also bet there’s many more stories out there like hers. :(

Vague as that is, I’d appreciate people not quoting that first paragraph.
 
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Whilst any false allegations are awful, I would also bet there’s many more stories out there like hers. :(

Vague as that is, I’d appreciate people not quoting that first paragraph.

Yes, vastly more. Most rapes never go to trial (or even get reported) and even then the conviction rate is dismal, as we all know, so the difference will be massive.

Not sure how it is relevant to this case, though.
 
I think sportsmen get away with it all the time.
They are hugely rich and have agents and people who can persuade the victims to not pursue it for more money than they earn in 4 years.
This is worldwide.
A certain pugalist certainly employed this tactic.
Kobe Bryant too, but that came out but no one seemed bothered.
 
Yes, vastly more. Most rapes never go to trial and even then the conviction rate...

Not sure how it is relevant to this case, though.
It’s as relevant as bringing up false accusation cases. Indeed a counterpoint.

Actually probably more relevant given the previously noted societal context the Depp-Heard case has been tried, filmed and analysed in.
 
It’s as relevant as bringing up false accusation cases. Indeed a counterpoint.

Actually probably more relevant given the previously noted societal context the Depp-Heard case has been tried, filmed and analysed in.

Bringing up a false accusation was only done in response to the bizarre implication that false allocations don't happen.

Bringing up a valid accusation isn't a counterpoint to that in any sense at all.
 
False accusations are rare but they do happen tho, and it isn't uncommon for a (usually, but not always male) abuser to accuse the victim of abuse. I don't think anyone in the position Depp said he was in was done any favours by this shitshow. Nobody needed this spectacle apart from maybe his lawyers and an army of 4chan trolls
 
False accusations are rare but they do happen tho, and it isn't uncommon for a (usually, but not always male) abuser to accuse the victim of abuse. I don't think anyone in the position Depp said he was in was done any favours by this shitshow. Nobody needed this spectacle apart from maybe his lawyers and an army of 4chan trolls

And sometimes you get these toxic relationships with abuse going in both directions.
 
I'll jump on the jumpers if that happens - this is totally the case.

Not too sure how this connects with the points being made, though.
I thought we were headed down the rape route, not necessarily by you, I was just making that observation at an early stage. Sorry if I jumped the gun!
 
I can't find anything about Depp's proven lying. Do you have a link?
Even the jury agreed he lied, and awarded damages to Heard! That lie was publicly voiced by his lawyer, but even if he didn't invent it he must have at least agreed that the lawyer should say it: "Ms Heard did succeed on one count: the claim that Mr Depp's lawyer gave a statement to the Daily Mail in 2020 calling her abuse allegations a hoax."Depp-Heard trial: Three questions answered after the verdict

His story about Heard cutting off the end of his finger by throwing a bottle is just absurd. It was debunked by expert witnesses. It's a measure of his shameless, arrogant, cocksure duplicity that he even made such a risible claim in court. He even admitted that he'd lied about this event when it happened! Johnny Depp details severed finger incident in court: ‘Nothing made sense’ How was Johnny Depp’s finger severed in Australia fight with Amber Heard?

The trial was a daft way to deliver justice. The British legal system wouldn't have allowed it. If you give a team of top lawyers 5 weeks to find untruths in accounts of an acrimonious divorce, they're bound to find dozens. Everybody lies. Actors lie more than most.

The verdict was a sports score (who lied the most) combined with a popularity contest. An American jury of 5 men and 2 women have probably enjoyed Pirates of the Caribbean but never seen Heard in a leading role. And, it being America, the baseline for public opinion is that women marry for money, and a smalltime actress like Heard who attaches herself to a much older megastar is only doing it for her career.

Then you add in the misogynist drumbeat of divorced women always reaming the man's bank account, plus the culture wars in which #MeToo and the Washington Post are woke, and therefore whiny entitled bullshit. So how can Heard win? How can any battered wife be believed?

It's to be expected that Americans on social media will relish putting the boot into the woman. The Brits who unthinkingly agree are a fucking disgrace. They should all have Woman Hater tattooed on their face.
 
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Not sure. Might be worth looking into the Craig Charles case and see what the motivation was there. Or the Hamiltons. That was a bizarre one
With things like the Hamiltons case, you do get the odd fantasist, but these are massive outliers. I think what I find so frustrating is people acting as though the number of false accusations (appalling as they are for those wrongly accused) is in any way comparable to the amount of abuse that actually happens is and never even brought anywhere near trial - either victims knowing they won't be believed, victims told by their family 'not to make a fuss', victims going to the authorities only to be told they should forget it etc. I would be surprised if there were not many more victims, mostly women, whose 'lives have been ruined' by going to trial with an absolutely true accusation that wasn't believed than there are men whose 'lives have been ruined' by a false accusation.

I do think society has hard-wired into it a very powerful historical narrative about women being untrustworthy and it's very difficult to get over. An idea that woman are physically weak and can't have it out in a physical fight like a man so they fight dirty and use lies and manipulation. Hence people apparently believing easily Heard must have just bribed people to side with her, she must have faked injuries, she must have pretended to cry. No one seems to have accused Depp of faking anything. And I don't see any evidence he has. But his defence team have used that narrative about women for all its worth, using small slips to catch her out and made her seen dishonest. And sadly it's worth a lot.
 
Bringing up a false accusation was only done in response to the bizarre implication that false allocations don't happen.

Bringing up a valid accusation isn't a counterpoint to that in any sense at all.
That’s not how I took Cloo ‘s post. I thought it was more critiquing both the ideas of false allegations being a common occurrence (a frequent claim), and being used as a way of furthering a career.

And given the crappy way women who try and secure convictions for rape and DV are treated by the police, the courts and if it’s high profile enough, the media; every case is both irrelevant and highly relevant to one another. These cases aren’t brought forward in a vacuum and to go back to my first point, whatever the precise details of this case Heard was doubly, unofficially tried within this context.
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David Clapson
The cause of the amputation of his finger was agreed by a hand surgeon. And in any event, why would a guitarist amputate his own finger - that doesn't make sense.

It's true that the jury found against Adam Waldman as Depp's agent. They literally believed the four police officers called to the scene that found AH wasn't injured as alleged and the premises not roughed up, so not accepting what AW alleged happened later. Fair enough.
 
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