A juror in the fiery defamation trial between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard has spoken out—revealing why the Pirates of the Caribbean star won the divisive case.
In an interview with ABC’s Good Morning America, the anonymous male juror explained that it was Heard’s time on the stand that ultimately swayed them to side with her ex-husband, whom she alleged physically, emotionally, and sexually abused her during their short-lived union.
The juror said that they thought Heard’s emotional testimony “didn’t add up,” leading them to believe it was the Aquaman actress who was the “aggressor” in the relationship.
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“The crying, the facial expressions that she had, the staring at the jury—all of us were very uncomfortable,” the juror told ABC. “She would answer one question and she would be crying and then two seconds later she would turn ice cold… Some of us used the expression ‘crocodile tears.’”
Ultimately, the jury of five men and two women concluded that Heard defamed Depp when she penned a 2018 Washington Post op-ed that described herself as a domestic violence survivor, and awarded the actor $10 million. The jury also awarded Heard $2 million in compensatory damages after finding she was defamed by Depp’s ex-attorney, Adam Waldman, who had described her abuse claims as a “hoax.”
A spokesperson for Heard declined to comment on Thursday to the juror’s interview.
The male juror revealed that he felt both sides were “abusive to each other,” but doesn’t believe that “that makes either of them right or wrong.”
“But to rise to the level of what she was claiming, there wasn’t enough or any evidence that really supported what she was saying,” he added.
The revelation that Heard had not donated all of her $7 million divorce settlement to charity despite claims to the contrary also made her lose credibility, the juror said.
“She goes on a talk show in the U.K. The video shows her sitting there telling the host that she gave all that money away, and the terms she used in that video clip were, ‘I gave it away,’ ‘I donated it,’ ‘It’s gone,’ but the fact is she didn’t give much of it away at all,” the juror said, summing up the situation as “a fiasco” for Heard.
In an interview with NBC News this week, Heard addressed the ongoing saga about her unfulfilled vows to give away her funds, insisting that she “made a pledge, and that the pledge is made over time by its nature.” The actress added that even though the trial “cast [aspersions] on who I am as a human,” she can’t “blame” the jury for their verdict.
As for Depp’s time on the stand, the juror insisted that the actor was simply “more believable.”
“He just seemed a little more real in terms of how he was responding to questions. His emotional state was very stable throughout,” the juror said.
