Johnny Depp Surprises Fans at Concert in England Over the Weekend

By Michael Hein

Johnny Depp took fans completely by surprise on Sunday night when he showed up at a Jeff Beck concert in England. Fans posted videos from the event showing Depp on stage performing alongside Beck as a surprise guest. He must have flown across the Atlantic shortly after the closing arguments in his lawsuit against his ex-wife Amber Heard on Friday.

Depp is best known as an actor, but he is also a lifelong musician. He typically performs with his band Hollywood Vampires along with Alice Cooper and Joe Perry. On Sunday, he joined Beck for a live rendition of their cover of John Lennon's "Isolation," which came out in 2020. The duo also played covers of "Little Wing" by Jimi Hendrix and "What's Going On" by Marvin Gaye. Of course, given the nature of the lawsuit going on right now, not all fans were pleased to see Depp without warning.

The Depp v. Heard trial has become one of the biggest public spectacles of all time, and it is not doing favors for either star's reputation. When Depp and Heard separated in 2016, both made accusations of domestic violence against each other, but they settled their divorce amicably in the end. However, in 2018 Heard wrote an op-ed describing herself as a victim of domestic violence. Depp is suing Heard for defamation, claiming that that op-ed has done irreparable damage to his career.

The goal of the trial is to determine whether Heard's article was defamatory but to do that Depp's legal team must convince jurors that the article was false in some way. For that reason, the trial has essentially become a re-litigation of the couple's divorce and of all the accusations between them. Even if that's not its legal function, that has become its function in the public eye.

Heard's legal team ended their arguments by saying that if the jury believes even oen of the allegations Heard has made against Depp, then her article was protected by the First Amendment. However, Depp's team took a much more blunt approach, saying that the jury must choose between believing Heard wholesale or writing off everything she has said about Depp.

"Either [Heard] is telling the truth, including in her most extreme allegations, or she is lying," insisted attorney Camille Vasquez. The jury will begin deliberations on Tuesday. There is no telling how long it might take them to agree on a verdict.

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