In an interview on NBC’s Today show in the US, the actress said she “understands” why jurors believed his version of events.“I don’t blame them,” Heard said.“He’s a beloved character and people feel they know him. He’s a fantastic actor.”But Heard, 36, went on to blast the verdict as “unfair”, and accused Depp of winning over the jury by putting “paid employees and randos” on the stand.“I’ll put it this way, how could they make a judgement, how could they not come to that conclusion,” Heard said.“They had said in those seats and heard over three weeks of non-stop, relentless testimony from paid employees and towards the end of the trial, randos, as I say. “Again, how could they after listening to three-and-a-half weeks of testimony about how I was an uncredible person and not to believe a word that came out of my mouth.”Depp was awarded $14.4 million (AUD) in damages after the jury ruled that Heard had defamed him by referring to herself as “public figure representing domestic abuse” in an op-ed for the Washington Post in 2018.Heard did not name Depp in the piece, but he sued her for implying he was a domestic abuser. Heard later countersued claiming that Depp’s lawyer, Adam Waldman, defamed her by saying her abuse claims were a “hoax”. The jury awarded her $2 million.Heard also claimed in her Today interview that viral social media posts backing Depp during the trial were “unfair”.“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. I don’t presume the average person should know those things. And so I don’t take it personally,” she said.“But 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 look me in the eye and tell me that you think on social media there’s been a fair representation.“You cannot tell me that you think that this has been fair.”Since the trial, Depp has signed up for TikTok and has otherwise been busying himself by playing gigs with Jeff Beck.A spokesperson for Heard said of today’s interview: “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. “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.”
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