Johnny Depp and Amber Heard have been in the news several different times in the last 5 years. The most recently, they were in the news because Amber Heard was required to prove that she donated money to a charity. So, after hearing their names over and over as well as seeing different online reactions to their drama, I was interested in looking into their story. What about their divorce sparked the internet into a frenzy and inspired  the plethora of  hateful misogynistic speech toward Heard.

In order to better understand the story between Heard and Depp, its best to look into their relationship history. They met each other in 2009 and began dating a few years after. The two got married in 2015. After only around a year, Heard filed for divorce in 2016 and alleged that Johnny Depp had abused her while they were married. Heard claimed during the divorce proceedings that Depp had abused her 14 different times during their time together. She also claimed that she was abused to the point that there were situations that were too traumatic for her to recount. They eventually reached an agreement at the end of 2016 and their marriage ended with Depp paying Heard $7 million which she stated that she would donate. Things were quiet for a year or two between the pair but there were still stories being printed that labeled Depp as a “Wife-Beater”. In 2019, Depp sues a paper in the UK for defamation as they were printing stories calling him an abuser. It was at this point that Depp made allegations that it was not Heard that was abused but it was him that was abused. He talked about how Heard threw a bottle at him, cutting his hand, punched him several times, and defecated in his bed. In addition to these allegations, he released a recording of Heard and Depp arguing where Heard admits to hitting Depp. Things are still not resolved around the couple and there is still a lot of back and forth almost 5 years after their divorce was finalized.

The second part of this drama unfolded online. Since their divorce was highly public and both Heard and Depp are public figures, there was a great deal of online reactions to their divorce. Looking into it further though, there is a very clear pattern to the supposed support of Depp. When looking at the petitions related to the two actors, its clear that the purpose of the public support is not to help Johnny Depp but instead to sink and destroy Heard. Petitions to cancel or remove Heard from upcoming movies have nearly two million signatures while those in support of Depp are often under 200,000. Most of the public seems to believe that Depp was the one who was abused in the relationship, and they are more than happy to call for Heard to be cancelled or hurt because of it. Their goal does not appear to be in support of Depp since there is almost no positive comments or anything left about the actor. Instead, the focus is on bringing Heard down. This is most clearly seen in the comments left about her on various different platforms. For example, from the comments left on 9gag* it is clear how much the sentiment is focused on insulting and wishing ill toward Heard. Most of the comments under posts around the couple are men calling Heard a bitch, claiming she used her body to secure acting jobs, and calling for her to be physically or sexually assaulted. There are even men who, while in the first part of their comment claim that they have never heard of her, still call for her to be assaulted or call her names. They don’t need to know her. They just know that since everyone else is bold enough to say some very sick things about her, they are allowed to as well.

Now as far as who is telling the truth: Depp or Heard it is hard to determine. But one thing is very clear regardless of who was abusive or being abused. There is no shortage of men who are willing to “come to the defense” of Depp when that defense is really an attack on a woman. When it is a man who has been proven to be the abuser, this same level of supposed “support” is no where to be found. There are plenty of different examples of famous couples where the man abused the woman in the relationship, but I have never seen the woman receive the same support from men as when the abused is a man**. The longer that I am on the internet, the more that I see that it takes very little to effort to find men who are emboldened to say misogynistic things in the relative safety and anonymity of the internet.

*Please don’t visit this website. If you do be warned: It is full of the most hateful, sexist, transphobic, and racist content I have seen. (Or if you do visit the site, don’t read the comments, its will just make you mad)

** Depp’s position as a very famous and well-beloved man likely makes him an outlier in some senses. When every day men admit to being abused, they are often not met with the same acceptance that Depp receives. Instead, they are ridiculed and told that they are less than a man for allowing themselves to be abused.