Opinions
Johnny Depp, Amber Heard and the deeply unsatisfying matter of re-litigating their trial
The series was panned by critics
On Aug. 16, Netflix released a three-part docuseries revisiting last summer’s televised civil litigation over allegations that Amber Heard had defamed ex-husband Johnny Depp by claiming to have survived sexual violence and domestic abuse during their four-year relationship.
Rather than offering anything new by way of insight or analysis from anyone with relevant qualifications or experience, each episode features clips from some of the online “creators” who turned their hot takes on the trial into a veritable cottage industry of amateur legal commentary and courtroom conspiracy theories, feeding the rapacious demand for anti-Heard and pro-Depp content. (As if to underscore the project’s unseriousness, these included a men’s rights YouTuber who wore a Deadpool mask and was surrounded by Spider-Man costumes.)
Worse still, “Depp v. Heard” director Emma Cooper fails not only to answer but also to even ask the obvious questions that have lingered since a verdict was returned more than 14 months ago by seven jurors in northern Virginia who were not sequestered as the case became, by far, the most popular topic on social media and online platforms.
At the same time, however, the episodes include footage of courtroom testimony that offer a glimpse, though incomplete, into some of the trial’s more salient and dispositive moments that I otherwise would never have seen (with neither the time nor the inclination, either last year or now, to follow 120+ hours of argument by the parties presented over the course of a seven-week trial.)
Do these scenes redeem the series? Hardly. But that does not mean they offer nothing of value, especially considering that while this was not the retelling of last summer’s events that we deserve, it remains the only one we’ve got. At least, for now.
Susan Sontag, in her 1977 collection of essays “On Photography,” proclaimed “The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people’s reality, and eventually in one’s own.”
In “Depp v. Heard,” the cameras facilitate a very specific kind of tourism that feels both exploitative and voyeuristic, because the reality in which we find ourselves trespassing is dark: the unraveling of a relationship between movie stars through patterns of dysfunction and abuse both familiar and alien, knowable and unknowable, like a city you have visited but never called home.
Especially when coupled with the more outrageous moments from trial that made headlines at the time – such as the debate over whether Heard defecated on Depp’s bed and blamed his teacup Yorkshire Terrier – there is a temptation to treat footage of testimony concerning the smashing of liquor bottles and hurling of wine glasses, the shoving and taunting and threats, even the physical and sexual violence, as though it were pure spectacle.
However, this would suggest, wrongly, that the painful realities of the actors’ relationship are so far removed from our lived experiences that we do not, cannot, or should not relate to them. As if a seven-week trial adjudicating the conflicts in our own intimate relationships or those involving the people we love would not turn up evidence of trouble and dysfunction, or worse.
Considering that we are primed to pick winners and losers and heroes and villains, perhaps it was unsurprising that incomplete and selectively edited footage from the case provided ample fodder for Instagram reels and TikTok videos that were created in the service of narratives that, most often, favored Depp and vilified Heard.
For me, witnessing these scenes in their proper context revealed a picture so much more complicated and, frankly, ugly that the prospect of framing the case in this manner seemed as preposterous as the idea that audiences leaving a production of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” should find themselves allied with either Martha or George.
To take just one example: From the witness stand, Heard recounted how she would often return home to their shared Los Angeles penthouse to find Depp nodding off in a chair because he had washed Roxicodone down with whiskey, or lying supine on the sofa fully unconscious with melted ice cream pooled in his lap. Worried about her husband’s apparent substance use disorder and unsure how best to help, the actress admitted she would sometimes take photos of him and share the pictures with a trusted friend.
Or, Depp’s attorney asked, was she just trying to humiliate him? Or, online commentators asked (often rhetorically), was this a calculated and premeditated move to collect evidence she would use against Depp in litigation or for purposes of extorting him?
As if these motives are mutually exclusive.
Having experienced the pain of watching loved ones spiraling in the throes of drug and alcohol addiction, I can tell you why I suspect Heard took the photos, but of course the reality is neither I nor anyone else – perhaps not even she – has any clue.
Last year, so much of the online noise about the trial came from content creators who made specious arguments to poke holes in the credibility of Heard’s testimony or alleged ulterior, sinister hidden motives based on the actress’s countenance, demeanor, speech, and other behavior.
For example, in clips that were often selectively edited or presented outside of their proper context, Heard might have seemed to cry more hysterically upon realizing the cameras were trained on her, which were used as supposed proof that her claims of suffering abuse at the hands of her ex-husband must therefore be fabricated.
Watching the footage in the manner presented on screen in “Depp v. Heard,” it becomes even more obvious how silly these interpretations were. In reality, of course, no one – not even police officers, trial court judges, F.B.I. and C.I.A. agents, trial lawyers or forensic psychiatrists – can reliably spot when someone is lying to them.
However convincing some YouTuber may have been, and however comforting the idea that we are able to see through the lies of others, I’m sorry to tell you the research on this is overwhelming and uncontested.
As Malcolm Gladwell observes in “Talking to Strangers,” Amanda Knox was falsely convicted for a murder she did not commit because “much of the prosecution’s case…rested on the allegedly strange, guilty behavior she exhibited,” which “the public deemed not in line with typical responses to grief and trauma.”
The cameras did not tell the complete story.
Well before 2022, private details about Depp and Heard’s troubled relationship had spilled onto the pages of tabloids like The Sun, which called Depp a “wife beater” in a 2018 story alleging that “overwhelming evidence was filed to show Johnny Depp engaged in domestic violence against his wife.” After he sued the paper for defamation, London’s High Court of Justice ruled against the actor in 2020, concluding the claims at issue were “substantially true.”
Still, last summer’s litigation between the actors earned far more public attention and unearthed far more (and far more titillating) private information, causing, therefore, far more damage than the supermarket rags and gossip blogs – as well as, ironically, the financial and reputational damage resulting from the very defamation claims that were adjudicated at trial.
As a reminder, Depp sued his ex-wife for a 2018 opinion article in the Washington Post in which she had written, “two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out.” Heard was referencing the backlash against, essentially, identical claims she made in a statement after securing a restraining order against Depp following their divorce in 2016. (“During the entirety of our relationship, Johnny has been verbally and physically abusive to me,” she wrote.)
In so many cases including this one, intimate partner abuse is messy. An audio recording of one of the couple’s arguments shows Heard acknowledging she had struck her ex-husband but denying that she punched him. Her testimony, meanwhile, detailed serious violent crimes, including that Depp had thrown her into a ping pong table and repeatedly hit her in the face before sexually assaulting her with a liquor bottle that may have been broken.
Of course, assuming their sworn testimony to be true, it must also be said, domestic violence is a gendered crime. And the imbalanced power dynamics within their relationship put Heard at a disadvantage, including in this respect. While both are famous actors, the wealth, power, and fame wielded by Depp was then (and remains, now) much greater.
The disparity was evident from the outset. In the Netflix series, throngs of fans are shown cheering the Pirates of the Caribbean star and booing Heard on the first day they were sighted arriving separately to the Fairfax County Circuit Court. Meanwhile, online, evidence of a sustained and coordinated character assassination of Heard had just begun to emerge.
The smear campaign would persist through the trial and beyond. The actress was called a manipulative liar, a gold digger, an abuser, a violent psychopath, a drug addict, and worse. Some of the most outrageous claims were among the most widely circulated: She snorted cocaine on the witness stand, killed her own mother to conceal testimony that would have exonerated Depp, plagiarized lines from the film The Talented Mr. Ripley.
Creators mocked Heard by lip-synching over audio of her testimony about suffering violent abuse in videos that went viral on TikTok along with hashtags like #JusticeForJohnnyDepp, which was seen nearly 3 billion times on the platform. (#justiceforamberheard earned just 25 million views.) One-sided articles and videos, many containing false and misleading claims, were promoted by Ben Shapiro’s conservative media outlet The Daily Wire through its estimated $35,000 and $47,000 purchase of Facebook and Instagram ads.
“Depp v. Heard” was panned by critics.
“If ever a true-crime documentary needed the usual collection of talking-head interviews with esteemed journalists, law enforcement veterans and legal experts to put things in perspective,” Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun Times wrote, “this is it — but that never happens.”
Others, like CNN’s Brian Lowry, agreed: “How much is gained from listening to a guy in a Deadpool mask offering extensive trial takes is a question ‘Depp v. Heard’ should have contemplated and apparently didn’t,” he wrote.
Several reviews added that part of the problem was that not nearly enough time had elapsed between the events and their retelling. Bustle’s Scaachi Koul pointed to other recent projects involving the private lives of public figures (especially women) that, with sufficient space and distance, found new and interesting things to say about their subjects and opportunities to tell their stories anew.
Ryan White’s excellent documentary “Pamela: A Love Story,” which was released by Netflix in January, manages to find plenty of material about actress and model Pamela Anderson along with the broader sociocultural forces of the 90s and early aughts that helped shape – and were shaped by – the era’s most enduring sex symbol.
The film would have been nothing, however, without Anderson. Listening to her tell her own story, one realizes how poorly suited everyone else was to the task – particularly the leering talk show hosts and journalists who treated her as nothing more than a sex object.
And maybe that, above all else, is the lesson to be gleaned from “Depp v. Heard”: Let’s come back to this story, sure, when we’re ready to cut through the bullshit, reframe the conversation away from the “him vs. her” framing, stop relying on provably unreliable evidence, and consider the broader context of their relationship and the impact of the trial that happened on TikTok and YouTube. And let’s definitely listen to Heard if and when she’s ready to talk about this again.
Until we get that docuseries (or documentary, scripted series, film, book, whatever), I fear everything else will be deeply unsatisfactory and unsatisfying.
Tensions between the U.S. and Cuba are rising again. This is not new, but the current moment feels different. Recent measures from Washington aim to further restrict the Cuban government’s financial channels, limit its sources of revenue, and apply pressure to key sectors of the economy. This is not symbolic. It is a deliberate policy.
From the U.S. perspective, the message is clear. The goal is to force change that has not happened in more than six decades. There is also a domestic political dimension, shaped by sectors of the Cuban exile community that have long demanded a tougher stance. All of this is part of the landscape.
But that is only one side.
On the Cuban side, the response follows a familiar script. The government speaks of external aggression, economic warfare, and a tightening embargo. Each new measure becomes an opportunity to reinforce that narrative and close ranks. There is no room for public self-criticism. The blame always points outward.
Meanwhile, life on the island follows a different logic.
The energy crisis Cuba is facing today did not begin with these recent measures. It has been building for years. The electrical system is deteriorated, poorly maintained, and increasingly unreliable. Blackouts are not new. What has changed is how severe and how constant they have become.
For years, oil entered Cuba, especially from Venezuela. There were supply agreements. There were resources. And yet, the daily life of ordinary Cubans did not improve. Electricity remained unstable. Fuel was rationed. Transportation was still a daily struggle.
So the question is not new.
If the oil was there, why didn’t anything change?
Where did those resources go?
Where is the money that was generated?
Today, restrictions on oil are often presented as the main cause of the current crisis. They are not. They make an already fragile situation worse, but they do not fully explain it.
There is a deeper, longer story that cannot be ignored.
The same applies to Cuba’s international medical missions.
For years, they were presented as acts of solidarity. And in many cases, they were. Cuban doctors worked in difficult conditions, saving lives and supporting health systems abroad. That is real.
But they also functioned as one of the Cuban state’s main sources of income.
Many of these professionals did not receive the full salary for their work. A significant portion was retained by the government. In some cases, they had little or no control over the money they generated.
And there is a harsher reality.
If a doctor chose not to return to Cuba, that income often did not reach their family. It was withheld.
Today, several countries are reevaluating or canceling these agreements. Once again, the official response is to point outward. But the same question remains.
Is this the loss of international cooperation, or the collapse of a system built on control over its own professionals?
Inside Cuba, the conversation sounds very different.
People are not speaking in geopolitical terms. They are talking about survival. About getting through the day. About blackouts, food shortages, transportation problems, and a life that keeps getting harder.
Some see the new U.S. measures as a form of pressure that could lead to change. Not because they want more hardship, but because they feel the system does not change on its own. There is a deep sense of stagnation.
But that sense of expectation exists alongside a harsh reality.
Sanctions do not hit decision-makers first. They hit ordinary people. The ones standing in line. The ones losing food during power outages. The ones who cannot move because there is no fuel.
That is the contradiction.
The Cuban government calls for international solidarity. And it receives it. Countries send aid. Organizations mobilize. Public voices defend the island.
But another question is also present.
Does that aid actually reach the people?
The lack of transparency in how resources are distributed is part of the problem. Because this is not only about what enters the country, but about what actually reaches those who need it.
Reducing Cuba’s reality to a dispute between two governments avoids the core issue.
There are shared responsibilities, but they are not equal.
The U.S. exerts external pressure with real economic consequences. That cannot be denied. But inside Cuba, there is a system that has had decades to reform, to respond, to open, and it has not done so.
That part cannot continue to be ignored.
I write this as a Cuban. From what I lived. From what I know. From the people who are still there trying to make it through each day.
Because at the end of the day, beyond what governments say or decide, the reality is something else.
Cuba today is under more pressure, yes. But it has also spent years carrying problems that no one has seriously confronted.
And as long as that remains the case, it does not matter what comes from outside. The problem is still inside.
Opinions
D.C. is the place for the Democratic Socialists of America
Our endorsed candidates hold their affiliation as a badge of honor
D.C. is the place for the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). We believe in a District where everyone can live a happy and dignified life. That means housing, healthcare, transit, education, and safety are treated as guarantees rather than privileges reserved for the wealthy and well-connected.
Our endorsed candidates do not hide what they believe. They engage in the democratic process openly, explain their politics clearly, and ask their fellow members to spend long nights and weekends doing the hard work of campaigning. And as the last six years of local elections have shown, including three successful D.C. Council campaigns and the overwhelming passage of Initiative 82, D.C. voters are often a great deal more interested in the endorsement of Metro DC DSA than in the handwringing of the Washington Post editorial board.
That is what makes Peter Rosenstein’s April 2 op-ed in the Blade so revealing. His piece was not just wrong. It was smug, unserious, and politically disconnected from the actual lives of queer people in this city. Worse, he used the platform of our local LGBTQ outlet to disregard Palestinian humanity while scolding democratic socialists for refusing to join him in that moral failure. Put plainly, Rosenstein has been publishing crank op-eds for years, and this one was no exception.
My name is Hayden Gise. I am a transgender, lesbian, Jewish, Democratic Socialist, and I am a union organizer. I do not speak on behalf of the national DSA organization, the local chapter, or any campaign. But I will not sit quietly while Rosenstein wraps himself in the mantle of queer Jewishness to sell the lie that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.
He packages that lie in the same kind of pinkwashing rhetoric used by Benjamin Netanyahu, who mocked solidarity with Palestinians by saying, “Some of these protesters hold up signs proclaiming ‘Gays for Gaza.’ They might as well hold up signs saying ‘Chickens for KFC.’” Rosenstein’s liberal Zionism is not thoughtful, brave, or nuanced. It is just a more polished way of telling Palestinians their lives matter less and telling queer people we should be grateful for the empire so long as it flies a rainbow flag. Which, by the way, is showing itself to be a losing strategy.
The ongoing genocide in Gaza is not some tragic deviation from the history of an otherwise peaceful Israel. The Nakba was the mass expulsion and displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s establishment in 1947–49, when hundreds of thousands were driven from their homes. My Jewish values tell me that is wrong. Rosenstein’s politics treat anti-Zionist Jews like me as illegible. No serious person should treat that accusation as an argument.
But the deeper problem with Rosenstein’s piece is that he has no real understanding of why Democratic Socialism resonates here. For queer people in D.C., Democratic Socialism is not an abstract theory. It is rent that does not consume half your paycheck, a union on your job, childcare you can actually afford, public transit that works, and a city where working-class Black and brown queer people are not displaced so developers and donors can cash in. Queer politics is not only about recognition. It is also about whether ordinary people can afford to survive.
That is why D.C. is fertile ground for Democratic Socialism. In the race for mayor, one of the leading candidates is Kenyan McDuffie, whose campaign already looks like a focus-grouped merger of Andrew Cuomo’s slogan and Donald Trump’s graphic design instincts, backed by big business interests and the super PAC money that follows them. The other has the endorsement of the major labor unions in the District. Who has a cohesive vision to make D.C. more affordable and childcare universal. Who puts people over profit and human rights over political expediency. Our next mayor, and our first Democratic Socialist Mayor: Janeese Lewis George.
D.C. is exactly the kind of city where Democratic Socialism should grow: working-class, queer, tenant-heavy, union-minded, and tired of being told that dignity is too expensive. Which side are you on? I know what side the queer people of the District of Columbia will be on.
Hayden Gise is a union organizer in Washington, D.C.
Peter Rosenstein responds:
I am responding to a column by Hayden Gise who says in her column she is a transgender, lesbian, Jewish, Democratic Socialist, and supports having the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) in Washington, D.C. She is definitely as entitled to her view on this, as I am to mine. However, I was surprised she clearly felt it important in her column to attack me personally, without even knowing me.
What she didn’t do is respond to the issues in the DSA platform I have a problem with and I asked candidates endorsed by the DSA to respond to. Are they for the abolition of the State of Israel? What is their definition of a Zionist? What is their definition of antisemitism? Will they meet with Zionist organizations? Do they support BDS? The DSA is also clear no person can be a member of a local DSA without being a member of the national organization.
Just so Gisa has a better idea of who I am she should know: I was a teacher and a union member. I worked for the most progressive member of Congress at the time, Bella S. Abzug (D-N.Y.), and supported her when she introduced the Equality Act in 1974, to protect the rights of the LGBTQ community, and have fought for its passage ever since. I have spent a lifetime fighting for civil rights, women’s rights, disability rights, and LGBTQ rights. I have no idea what Hayden Gise’s background is, or what her history of working for the causes she espouses is. But I would be happy to meet with her to find out. She should know, I take a backseat to no one in the work I have done over my life fighting for equality, including economic equality, for all. So, I will not attack her, as I don’t know her, and contrary to her, don’t personally attack people I don’t know much about.
I have, and will continue to attack, what the government of Israel is doing to the Palestinian people, and now to those in Lebanon and Iran. I will also attack the government of my own country, and the felon in the White House, and his sycophants in Congress, for what they are doing to our own people, and people around the world, and will continue to work hard to change things.
However, I will also continue to stand for a two-state solution with the continued existence of the State of Israel, calling for a different government in Israel. I also strongly support the Palestinian people and believe they must have the right to their own free state.
For half a century, the arc of LGBTQ progress in America has bent—slowly, imperfectly—toward justice. We fought for visibility, for legal protections, for the right to marry, serve openly, and live with dignity. Each generation built on the courage of the last.
And yet today, that progress is in peril. Across the country, lawmakers are rolling back protections, demonizing LGBTQ people for political gain, and trying to erase us from public life.
Opponents of our equality are working to erase us from the Constitution, and indeed, public life. In moments like this, based on my personal involvement working with one of the most effective leaders for LGBTQ rights I find myself asking a simple question: What would Jeffrey do?
Jeffrey Montgomery—the focus of a new documentary “America You Kill Me” and a long time Michigan activist and founder of the Triangle Foundation—was never content with quiet advocacy or compromise. He was a rabble-rouser, a strategist, and a relentless thorn in the side of powerful bigots. When politicians tried to marginalize LGBTQ people, Jeffrey didn’t politely ask for scraps. He forced the issue.
Jeffrey Montgomery started with his own determined voice and turned it into a movement. His story is living proof that personal courage can spark national conversations about justice and inclusion.
At a moment when the LGBTQ movement again faces hostility and regression, Jeffrey’s playbook offers lessons we would be wise to remember.
First, Jeffrey understood the importance of punching above our weight. In the early days of LGBTQ organizing, our movement was small, underfunded, and politically marginalized. But Jeffrey refused to let opponents see us that way. Through visibility, media savvy, and relentless organizing, he made LGBTQ advocates appear larger, stronger, and more unified than our numbers alone might suggest.
That perception mattered. Political opponents think twice before attacking a movement that looks organized, energized, and capable of mobilizing public pressure. Jeffrey knew that power is partly about reality—but also about what your opponent believes your power to be.
Second, Jeffrey never compromised on the value of our lives. Movements make compromises all the time. Politics often requires it. But Jeffrey understood that some things are not negotiable. The basic humanity of LGBTQ people is one of them. You can’t put our basic rights on the ballot. You don’t tell people to wait their turn. There are no turns. It’s now. It’s always now.
Too often, our opponents frame equality as something to be bargained over—as if the dignity and safety of queer people were a policy preference rather than a fundamental right. Jeffrey rejected that premise entirely.
You can negotiate strategy. You can negotiate timelines. But you cannot negotiate the worth of human lives.
And finally, Jeffrey understood the power of coalition. Today, one of the most effective tactics used against marginalized communities is division. If LGBTQ people can be fractured—by identity, ideology, generation, or strategy—our collective strength weakens.
Jeffrey instinctively resisted that trap. He worked with civil rights groups, labor leaders, faith communities, civic leaders and allies across movements. He understood that the fight for LGBTQ equality was never isolated from the broader fight for justice.
When opponents try to divide us, the answer is not retreat into smaller camps. The answer is to build broader ones.
If Jeffrey Montgomery were here today, he would not be discouraged by the backlash we are seeing. He would recognize it for what it is: the predictable response of those who feel their power slipping away.
And he would remind us that progress has never been linear. It has always required courage, persistence, and a willingness to challenge power directly.
So, when the moment feels uncertain, when the political winds shift against us, and when our opponents try to make us feel small, the question remains a useful one: What would Jeffrey do?
If history is any guide, the answer would be simple. He would make some noise. And making noise, today, means refusing to let fear, fatigue, or false unity quiet us when our lives are on the line.
Sean Kosofsky was director of policy at the Triangle Foundation.
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