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.
Opinions
Literature is my companion
I’ve lived in Russia, Pakistan, India, but books are always home
People often ask where I am from and I never know how to answer.
The factual answer is straightforward enough: I was born in D.C., spent parts of my childhood in Pakistan and India, lived in Moscow, and later in Jordan before eventually settling in the United States. The emotional answer is much more complicated. Home kept changing. Languages changed. Schools changed. Friends changed.
The only country I never had to leave was literature.
Some children grow up with a single hometown that anchors their memories. I grew up with departure lounges, embassy compounds, cardboard boxes, and the understanding that permanence was a temporary arrangement. Just when I learned the shape of one place, another place arrived. By the time I reached adulthood, I had become adept at beginning again.
Books offered a different bargain. They asked only that I return.
I was too young in Saudi Arabia to remember much beyond fragments and family stories. Pakistan arrived as mountains and long drives. We passed through Abbottabad on our way to ski slopes, the landscape unfolding in a way that felt both ancient and immediate. Even as a child, I found comfort in reading during those journeys. A book transformed transit into destination. The hours belonged to a story rather than to geography.
India deepened that relationship. I remember wandering through bookstores near Khan Market in New Delhi, clutching bags of Lay’s chips and searching for something new to carry home. There was a particular joy in rummaging through shelves without any plan, allowing a title or a sentence to find me first. Outside our house, cows grazed peacefully on the grass, untouchable and entirely unconcerned with human schedules. Street vendors sold samosas that remain among the best food I have ever eaten. The world outside was vibrant, crowded, and overwhelming in the best possible way. Reading provided a parallel world—equally rich, but one I could enter and leave on my own terms.
By the time we moved to Moscow, literature had become less of a pastime and more of a companion.
Winters in Russia bring their own emotional architecture. The days contract. Darkness arrives early. At diplomatic receptions in Spaso House, there were blinis, caviar, Christmas cookies, and annual performances of “The Nutcracker.” Yet beyond the formal rituals of diplomacy stood an extraordinary literary inheritance. To live in Moscow is to feel, even faintly, the presence of writers who treated human suffering and longing with unmatched seriousness.
I found myself drawn to Fyodor Dostoevsky and his insistence that contradiction lies at the center of being human. You can hold faith and doubt simultaneously. You can seek love while fearing intimacy. You can desire freedom and still long for belonging. For someone who already felt different from those around him, those lessons mattered. Literature granted permission to be complicated.
Jordan, perhaps more than anywhere else, taught me that books and places can become intertwined. I think of afternoons in Jabal Amman and evenings near Rainbow Street. I think of traveling through Wadi Rum, floating in the Dead Sea, hiking through Wadi Mujib, and standing in Petra with the humbling awareness that civilizations outlast individual lives. Reading in such places changed the texture of the act itself. The world felt larger, and so did the questions worth asking.
People sometimes imagine literature as an escape from reality. I have never understood it that way.
For me, books did not remove me from the world. They taught me how to inhabit it.
They taught me that loneliness is a universal experience rather than a personal defect. They taught me that identity can be layered and unfinished. They taught me that grief and beauty frequently occupy the same sentence. Most importantly, they taught me that human beings across centuries and continents ask remarkably similar questions: Who am I? What do I owe others? How should I live?
Those questions followed me to college, where literature ceased to be merely a private refuge and became an intellectual vocation. Yet even then, I recognized that my relationship to books differed from that of many peers. I did not simply love reading. I depended upon it. Literature had functioned as continuity in a life defined by movement.
Other people had hometown diners, childhood neighborhoods, and lifelong classmates. I had novels, essays, and poems that accompanied every relocation.
Perhaps that is why I remain skeptical of narrow definitions of belonging. Home is not always a fixed point on a map. Sometimes it is a practice. Sometimes it is a set of stories you carry from one country to another. Sometimes it is a shelf of books that survives every move.
The older I become, the more grateful I am for that inheritance.
Long before I understood my identity, my ambitions, or even the shape of the life I wanted to build, I understood that books offered something enduring. They expected nothing from me except attention. They never demanded reinvention. They remained patient through every transition.
I have left many places behind over the course of my life. Literature, thankfully, never left me.
Isaac Amend is a writer based in the D.C. area. He is a transgender man and was featured in National Geographic’s ‘Gender Revolution’ documentary. He serves on the board of the LGBT Democrats of Virginia. His portfolio is available at isaacamend.com and you can contact him on Instagram at @isaacamend.
Opinions
ROSENSTEIN: Vote Susan Stewart for mayor of Rehoboth Beach
She says LGBTQ contributions have shaped town’s character
There is really only one clear choice for mayor of Rehoboth Beach, and that is Susan Stewart. She has the experience, knowledge, and clear vision, to successfully lead the city forward. If you want to see in detail what her priorities are, check out her website, www.Stewart4Mayor.com.
I have been coming to Rehoboth Beach for more than 40 years and love it. I want to see it continue to thrive, and be the place where people will enjoy living, retiring to, and vacationing. All those factors are important to consider when choosing the next mayor.
Susan has said, “I will work to preserve the character of Rehoboth Beach while responsibly investing in the infrastructure, financial stability, and community partnerships needed for the future.” She understands it is important to manage growth if you are to maintain a great quality of life, and sense of belonging, for those who live there now, and those who will come in the future. In a conversation I had with her, she said something important to me. She said, “As mayor, I will make sure every resident, regardless of who they are or whom they love, feels welcome and represented at City Hall. Rehoboth Beach has long been a place where the LGBTQ community has found belonging, built businesses, and shaped the character of this city. That is not incidental to what makes Rehoboth special. It is central to it.” She went on to say, “Our city works best when all residents feel heard, respected, and engaged in the decisions that affect their lives. I am committed to bringing people together around shared priorities, and practical solutions.”
When it comes to the city’s financial picture and growth Susan said, “A town’s growth must reflect the community’s values, not be imposed upon it. I am committed to collaborate with the community to preserve the walkable scale, natural beauty, and neighborhood character, that make Rehoboth Beach irreplaceable.” Susan understands investments in the future must be made in a thoughtful way to guarantee the city continues to thrive. This includes maintaining a great quality of life, with clean streets, safe and attractive structures, accessible beaches, and a vibrant commercial district. Every decision made by the mayor, with the Commission, must ensure that those who live here, feel the city truly belongs to them.
Susan began her career as an attorney, then transitioned into the financial services sector. Her early experience included roles at major banks and brokerage firms, where she developed deep expertise in investment strategy, and client advising. In 1996, she founded her own financial advisory firm where she advised high net worth individuals and families, managing large-cap equity mandates for several state retirement systems and a Fortune 500 company. After successfully leading the firm for 15 years, she closed it in 2011 and returned to the brokerage industry. Today, she is a financial adviser, and senior vice president with The StewartGroup, RBC Wealth Management. Her daughter, Taylor Stewart, is a business partner in their practice. Stewart works remotely from her home in Rehoboth Beach. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Ursinus College; and a Juris Doctor from The Dickinson School of Law, Pennsylvania State University. She is deeply committed to public service, and currently serves on the City of Rehoboth Beach Commission, and has previously served on the Planning Commission, as well as the Mixed-Use and Stormwater Utility Task Forces. She is also a member of the board of trustees for Ursinus College.
With her strong financial background people can be assured Susan will ensure Rehoboth Beach maintains its strong fiscal position. Contrary to what one of the commissioners who is also running for mayor has said, Rehoboth is in strong fiscal shape. It is projected the city will end the year with a surplus of about $1.5 million, and projections are for surpluses through 2031. With her financial background, Susan has the ability to manage taxpayer resources carefully, and has committed to maintaining healthy reserves for the future. She understands any investments must deliver lasting value for residents.
Susan hopes to engage with residents on important questions like deciding which infrastructure projects should be the top priority; how the city should use reserves that exceed its own requirements; what investments will deliver the most value to residents; and how to maintain long-term financial stability while meeting community needs. I believe as an experienced professional, Susan truly believes these are the real policy conversations that should be had, and she will have them.
Since I have heard people discussing another candidate for mayor, Commissioner Suzanne Goode, it is important to recognize she clearly doesn’t represent the people, or values, we have come to love about Rehoboth Beach. I last wrote about her when she tried to have her husband elected to join her on the Commission. She thought that was an appropriate thing to do. If she is elected mayor, will she try to have her husband appointed to fill her seat on the Commission? Rehoboth Beach is better than that. When I last wrote about her, I said she appears to represent MAGA Republicans. Apparently, she cleaned up her Facebook page but it had included attacks on Obamacare, President Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and support for Ron DeSantis. That is not who we want for mayor of Rehoboth Beach.
On Saturday, Aug. 8, I urge you to cast your ballot for Susan Stewart for mayor. She will make us all proud.
Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist.
Opinions
Pro-trans court ruling does little for Naval healthcare worker
Trump administration should support accomplished service members
Following the start of the Iran war, many Americans were worried for the first time in decades about a potential draft. When asked about the possibility, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt noted that it was not part of the current plans but that, “The president wisely keeps his options on the table.”
While the Trump administration did not rule out the option to conscript unwilling young citizens, it had no problem alienating willing service members, removing high-ranking female or African-American officers, and banning transgender people from serving in the military, stating that “a history of gender dysphoria is incompatible with the high physical, surgical, and mental health standards required for military service.”
The decision to discharge thousands of service members who have already proven their dedication and efficacy in serving their country, simply because of their gender identity, seems counterintuitive for a nation that has just struggled through a war, a regression toward a long past of discrimination in our military, and a ruling that has been questioned in judicial systems.
On June 1, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit issued a decision blocking the government from discharging 28 transgender plaintiffs from the military (Talbott vs. United States), calling the policy “animus” toward a politically unpopular group. News outlets reported it as a win for LGBTQ rights, but that hardly seems to matter for the close to 15,000 other transgender military service members who have either already been separated or constantly fear that they will soon be removed.
I interviewed a recently separated transgender Naval healthcare worker for this editorial, who used the initial S. for anonymity and who told me that hearing the news of the Talbott court decision was more bitter than sweet, remarking, “While the recent ruling in favor of trans service members offers fleeting hope, Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has already announced the decision to appeal to the Supreme Court, where we will likely expect the same outcome as before. Unfortunately, any definitive outcome in favor of trans service members will likely come long after the damage has been done.”
Studies by the RAND Corporation have found that transgender military service showed no significant impact on operational readiness, and according to the BBC, the Department of Defense spends eight to 10 times more on erectile dysfunction drugs than on gender-affirming care.
S. served a critical role in the Navy, as active-duty service members are far more likely to experience mental health challenges than the civilian population, and it doesn’t sound like his gender identity was a problem for any of his coworkers: “Everyone judged me by my ability, not my identity; most of them didn’t know that I was transgender until the separation process forced my public acknowledgement.”
Dedicating years of his life to serving his country, not only did S. lose that dream, but it also impacted his entire caseload of clients. “One by one, I had to meet with them and explain that I was abruptly leaving the clinic and ultimately separating from military service. It was death by a thousand cuts—having to tell people back-to-back, session after session, that I could no longer work with them. Many of them were in the midst of their own crises while I was quietly navigating mine. It was heartbreaking.”
He also spent 11 months in a state of limbo, waiting to be officially separated – having secured a job at another federal agency and beginning to treat new patients, the Department of Defense rescinded its approval, citing that you cannot work at two federal agencies at once, and effectively sidelined a critical health care worker until they could formally discharge S. from the Navy.
The irony of citing mental health standards to remove a Naval healthcare worker in good standing, at a time when many personnel are in dire need of clinical care is notable. To maximize operational readiness, the Trump administration should not turn its back on accomplished service members who hold critical roles in the military.
Tyler Kania is an independent journalist and 2025 IAN Book of the Year finalist.
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