Amber Heard Says She ‘Does Not Blame’ Jury in Johnny Depp Trial

Amber Heard spoke out in her first interview since the end of her and Johnny Depp’s defamation trial, saying she does not blame the Virginia jury for the decision they reached. At the end of the six-week trial, the jury found she defamed Depp in her 2018 Washington Post op-ed about being a domestic violence survivor. Depp was awarded $10.4 million in damages, while Heard was awarded $2 million.

Heard sat down with the Today Show‘s Savannah Guthrie for an interview that will air Tuesday and Wednesday on Today. It is also part of an hour-long Dateline special airing Friday on NBC. In a preview clip released Monday, Heard said she believed social media, which overwhelmingly supported Depp over Heard, played a role in the trial.

“Even somebody who is sure I’m deserving of all this hate and vitriol, even if you think that I’m lying, you still couldn’t tell me – look me in the eye and tell me – that you think on social media there’s been a fair representation,” the Aquaman actress said. “You cannot tell me that you think that this has been fair.”

Depp filed a $50 million defamation lawsuit against Heard in 2019, claiming the Post op-ed negatively impacted his career, even though Heard did not name him as her abuser. Heard countersued for $100 million. Depp denied abusing Heard during his testimony. The trial ended with the jury awarding Depp $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages (this was later lowered to $350,000 in accordance with Virginia law). The jury awarded Heard $2 million in compensatory damages.

Depp also lost a 2020 libel lawsuit in the U.K. after The Sun referred to him as a “wife-beater.” A judge ruled that the allegations were “substantially true” and Depp lost his appeal in 2021. Heard’s attorney, Elaine Bredehoft, told Guthrie on June 2 that evidence used in the U.K. case was “suppressed” in Virginia. Bredehoft also believed social media influenced the jury, even though the judge ordered them not to look at social media. “There’s no way they couldn’t have been influenced by it, and it was horrible,” Bredehoft told Today. Heard also plans to appeal the Virginia verdict, Bredehoft said.

Depp’s attorneys, Benjamin Chew and Camille Vasquez, strongly disputed the idea that social media played a role in the verdict. “I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that the jurors violated their oath,” Chew told Today on June 8. “And again, that suggestion was disappointing to hear.”

Heard told Guthrie she didn’t care what people’s opinions are of her after the verdict. “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,” she said. “I don’t presume the average person should know these things. And so I don’t take it personally.”

The actress could also understand why the jury ruled against her. “He’s a beloved character and people feel they know him. He’s a fantastic actor,” she said.

After NBC News released the preview for Heard’s interview, her team released a statement to Entertainment Tonight, defending her decision to speak out after Depp and his team did the same. “Johnny Depp’s legal team blanketed the media for days after the verdict with numerous statements and interviews on television, and Depp himself did the same on social media,” reads the statement. “Ms. Heard simply intended to respond to what they aggressively did last week; she did so by expressing her thoughts and feelings, much of which she was not allowed to do on the witness stand.”