Depp vs. Heard 2022

[chickpea]

just want to respond to a couple points:

amber was evaluated & diagnosed for the court, by johnny’s paid witness. (most of his witnesses are people on his payroll which is why i don’t take them at face value). we have no knowledge as to whether or not he has a personality disorder or mental illness.

his career had declined before he met amber. she never had much of one. she got one superhero movie, and has been largely cut out of the one coming out as far as i know. johnny had pivoted mostly to family-friendly, franchise films and even removing the domestic violence allegations from the picture, his general behavior is a liability and doesn’t portray the image companies like disney want to align themselves with.

“He’s Radioactive”: Inside Johnny Depp’s Self-Made Implosion

It wasn't just the erratic and violent behavior that unmade one of the world's most bankable stars. It was his unquenchable thirst for revenge.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

just want to respond to a couple points:

amber was evaluated & diagnosed for the court, by johnny’s paid witness. (most of his witnesses are people on his payroll which is why i don’t take them at face value). we have no knowledge as to whether or not he has a personality disorder or mental illness.

[/QUOTE]
Do we know he wasn't evaluated? I would think Amber's team would have him evaluated in response to the psychologist he hired. They are certainly free to do that, so it begs the question, why not? Also, Dr. Curry's evaluation was based on extensive test scores, so it isn't a personal or paid-for evaluation, but simply reporting test scores.

his career had declined before he met amber. she never had much of one. she got one superhero movie, and has been largely cut out of the one coming out as far as i know. johnny had pivoted mostly to family-friendly, franchise films and even removing the domestic violence allegations from the picture, his general behavior is a liability and doesn’t portray the image companies like disney want to align themselves with.

“He’s Radioactive”: Inside Johnny Depp’s Self-Made Implosion

It wasn't just the erratic and violent behavior that unmade one of the world's most bankable stars. It was his unquenchable thirst for revenge.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

Are you saying that Amber's accusing Johnny of domestic violence had little or no impact on his career? When you refer to "general behavior" is this the anecdotes about drinking? Consider that could also be influenced by being in a domestic violence environment. However, there are self and witness reports that he did not drink for up to 18 months at a time.

Even as a very careful, responsible person, I could see myself drinking too much if I lived with Amber and subjected to physical bruising like she hits her sister, verbal berating, having my finger chopped off, having her spit in my face, and shit on my bed. It could be reasonably human to drink more than is healthy in that circumstance. It troubles me greatly for people to turn away and say, "Oh well Johnny drank too much and slammed cupboard doors". This is a serious moral violation.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

Watching the majority of the trial, I haven't yet seen definitive proof that Johnny assaulted Amber. There are a couple of photos of Amber's face, but the discoloration is different than most bruising and there are no images of swelling. I have not yet heard a medical professional state that Amber Heard had an injury from Johnny, or even that the apparent bruises were injuries. There are numerous reports of Amber falsifying harm, and am watching one now as Erin Falati, Amber's personal nurse reports that the account of Amber losing hair in a fight could not be verified on her examination, and she cannot report having seen injuries on Amber. If I see definitive evidence, then I will accept it. The problem is saying, "well we don't know what Johnny did" therefore, he's not innocent. This is a problem of moral reasoning.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Watching the majority of the trial, I haven't yet seen definitive proof that Johnny assaulted Amber. There are a couple of photos of Amber's face, but the discoloration is different than most bruising and there are no images of swelling. I have not yet heard a medical professional state that Amber Heard had an injury from Johnny, or even that the apparent bruises were injuries. There are numerous reports of Amber falsifying harm, and am watching one now as Erin Falati, Amber's personal nurse reports that the account of Amber losing hair in a fight could not be verified on her examination, and she cannot report having seen injuries on Amber. If I see definitive evidence, then I will accept it. The problem is saying, "well we don't know what Johnny did" therefore, he's not innocent. This is a problem of moral reasoning.

Well we also don't know for sure that it was Amber who severed Johnny's finger, do we? Heard gave an alternative explanation for that and it seems to me that we don't have confirmation of either. I'll grant that I think Amber did sever Johnny's finger with a vodka bottle, but that's based on speculation and intuition.

Legally a higher standard than that is required. Due to the private nature of much of these events, I doubt there is much in the way of positive proof for either version of events. Due to the nature of this, knowledge is limited.

I do appreciate that more people are discussing men in abusive relationships as a consequence of this, which I think is actually a sign of progress. Usually I would expect such a story like that to be framed in terms of the man being weak and thus deserving of abuse; or that letting it get to him was a sign of weakness.

I have witnessed a few cases in real life (and even perhaps on certain sites on the internet, if one could believe it) of women spinning things in cases where they are acting like assholes to make themselves the victims instead, and because of social expectations and biases succeeding in this. I think men witnessing this kind of thing is probably more common than people might make it out to be, and I see that as influencing a lot of the pro-Depp response. Granted I wouldn't say what I witnessed was on the level of domestic abuse, but it isn't inconceivable to me that this kind of thing would apply to something with that level of severity. I will say that Heard does strike me as that type based on what I'm learning.

But just because Heard is guilty doesn't make Depp innocent. I think his phone messages about Heard suggest to me that at the very least, he is someone who has a hard time controlling his temper. I'm not saying that talking about drowning your partner means that Depp is actually capable of doing it, but it does suggest a level of unrestrained rage that it's possible it *might* cross into physical abuse. And the fact that Heard has no permanent damage (unlike Depp) also doesn't mean she didn't suffer any.

Now, in a court of law, would this be sufficient on a jury (this might not be a jury trial, but that's not important) for me to rule in opposition to Depp's libel suit? I don't know.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

Well we also don't know for sure that it was Amber who severed Johnny's finger, do we?

There are several witness accounts: Ben King the butler who had to clean it up, security personnel Malcolm Connelly. More recently Johnny Depp's testimony was analyzed by The Behavior Panel, a group of four interrogation body language experts analyzed Johnny Depp for falsehood during that very testimony which is included in this thread and they detected no deception.

Links included with each name.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

@Julius_Van_Der_Beak
It is a jury trial this time.

I am certainly not making the fallacy that "because Amber is guilty, Johnny is innocent", but it is also important to not make the 50/50 fallacy that their behavior is equal. I would not personally date either one, but I think it is Amber that has an established history of abusing many people from her sister, to her personal assistant she spat on when asked for a raise, to the medically validated injuries Johnny sustained.

I do think Johnny is a complicated guy with substance abuse issues. He may be able to control the substance abuse at times, but there is enough evidence to establish it can manifest as a problem. He also has a psychological weakness for feeling attraction to the most bitchy women Hollywood has to offer, the exception being Vanessa. His texts would have destroyed me emotionally, but then again, I am not violent or mean, so I can't entirely judge the dynamic that produced those, and they are Monty Python quotes, which is how he processes anger, through a sense of dark humor. I think he imagines the worst pains into absurdities, and even the body language experts noticed that he smiles every time he refers to pain in a context of extremes or absurdities. I do think that Hollywood creates unhealthy ego dynamics that the people are not even conscious of having, and when you add a history of child abuse from a hostile mother, he has complex feelings towards women. He is also on recording as always trying to walk away and leave and she screams obsessively, calling him old, fat, worthless as an actor which absolutely affected him, and and then following him so he has to lock himself into bathrooms to get away from her. While I don't think he is a saint by any means, I would be psychologically destabilized living with Amber Heard. I'd be a mess until I left, so I withhold some judgment from that perspective as well.

I also withhold some judgment for Amber because brain scans show that people with BPD have significantly altered brain structures that might make emotional regulation impossible. I do not know if she is sick or choosing to be an abuser, but know she causes harm, and would like to see her get help to fix whatever is malfunctioning in her brain.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

Clinical psychologist Dr. Dawn Hughes is testifying on behalf of Amber right now, so it will be interesting to hear what she has to say. My main issue with her right now is that she consistently refers to perpetrators with male pronouns and victims with female pronouns. When describing surveillance behaviors she says, "typically men" as the perpetrators of this behavior. While I understand that men cause more physical harm en masse in domestic abuse, women are certainly equal partners for snooping and checking up on partners. I know several women who get into their partner's emails and texts. I'm inclined to think women are more likely to commit that violation because it is more subvert control. This psychologist is well trained, intelligent, and credible, but does demonstrate gender bias in her evaluations.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

What is so horrible when someone falsifies an assault claim, is that if they do experience instances of actual assault, you have the crying wolf effect. This is a primary reason I follow this case so closely because falsified abuse claims from secondary people has been a significant problem in my life, so I care about knowing the truth.

Dr. Dawn Hughes is reporting on what Amber has told her about Johnny's abuse, and while I know some of Amber's claims have been proven false, it troubles me to not be able to determine if there are instances of truth. Dr. Hughes is reporting what Amber reported about sexual assaults from Johnny, and that is definitely not something I could support.

I feel sympathies for Johnny in relationship to the accusations of his jealousy because there is compelling evidence that Amber cheated on him, so I think he was justified in those feelings, and I would certainly struggle the same if a partner was behaving like Amber.

I hope she was not sexually assaulted, and I don't believe in being "team Johnny", but I believe in standing by evidence and caring about what is demonstrably true. I just wish people wouldn't lie about this stuff because it makes an epic mess for everyone, including their own self.

 

[Totenkindly]

I guess we'll find out more once Heard gets to dump all HER shit in public versus it just being the Johnny Depp show.

No one is going to look good coming out of this. I wonder what the studios will do, as neither of them seems to be a good "risk" to take into a project due to all the crappy baggage.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

Please don't quote this:

I grew up in poverty and fear running from my father because my mother and her relatives characterized him as dangerous and wanting to kill her and my brother, and certainly harming the rest. My mother was genuinely afraid, but likely had a paranoid disorder because my family found our father and moved out here to be with him until he died. He had a second family he didn't hurt, so I feel I can say I was taught a falsehood resulting from mental illness.

I also had a friend I felt sorry for who described in detail horrific rapes by her husband and church elder, and she described a lack of professional and legal support. I invested years and hundreds of hours of energy trying to support and help, and then there were indications of falsehood and mental illness.

I've had other friends tell me tales of suffering and abuse, but with oddities that don't add up when you try to picture what they are saying. As a result of these experiences, I live in an underlying torment of feeling deep concern paired with deep distrust. It feels horrible to disbelieve a claim of assault, and yet it is a horrible moral violation to believe such a lie and destroy an innocent life. I absolutely hate that people falsify assault, and live in morbid fascination wondering if it is mental distortions of perception or willful manipulation.

I'm not a person who "hates Amber Heard", but I feel deeply disturbed and concerned by this dynamic that has proven to be a prevalent part of my life, impacting its very structure. How do we identify these perceptual distortions? I feel invested in an ethical position of requiring concrete evidence: recordings, videos, photographs, doctor reports, police reports, eye witness. Without these an assault can certainly happen, but an entire range of perceptual distortions can also happen.

 

[Totenkindly]

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

On Dr. Dawn Hughes cross examination, half of her practice is trial cases and she has never represented a male victim of DV unless it is from another man. She has never represented a male victim of DV in a heterosexual relationship. Her initial verbal bias is showing expression in her history of practice.

Also, all of her information is either reported from Amber Heard or others second-hand reporting from Amber, and only after Amber was sued by Johnny in 2019. Clear motive is established for Amber to validate her victim status legally. It was her legal team that found this woman and pays her $500/hour. This wasn't even a counselor that Amber found and felt would personally understand her.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

One of Amber's accusations does ring questionable to me. She accuses Johnny of raping her with an alcohol bottle and thinking "I hope it wasn't the broken one".

My first response was feeling horrified like "Oh, no, what if it's true", but this also serves as an example of a phrase that raises a red flag for me based on my history of hearing false assault claims. It is a narrative derived from an existing story. With a high degree of certainty, Amber is known to have thrown two vodka bottles at Johnny in Australia, the second one severing his finger. By saying he abused her back with a bottle, it creates a game style competition to one-up the trauma. Her narrative is based on an existing narrative, but reverses polarity.

False narrative strategies I have noticed include:
1. Reversed polarity: where a person describes a violation by using projection, actually describing something they are guilty of doing, but reversing the characters and of course altering details to create a smoother storyline. If the accusation has this inverse quality, it is questionable to me.

2. Narrative collage: where a person pieces together multiple stories they have encountered from other sources. Each individual piece can be very compelling because they are reflecting something that happened in reality. However, there will be different components to the story that when put together become incongruent.

3. Restating a fictional narrative: Individuals can also reference a news story, a crime drama, or book, and recast the characters as a representation of their own life and purposed victimization.

4. Exaggeration: A person has experienced something negative, but in recounting the story becomes more extreme over time to try to convey the emotional experience. So there can be some truth to it, but this can be taken to a point of misrepresentation of the event, but this is the style where the person is most likely to convince their own self of the falsehood because the extreme account can "feel" more accurate than the reality based account.

5. Generalization: supplanting archetypes, stereotypes, dictionary definitions, and generalities as personal experience.

Most people have some imagination and abstract reasoning, but are not gifted at it, so have to commit a sort of plagarism, to take narratives from other sources.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Clinical psychologist Dr. Dawn Hughes is testifying on behalf of Amber right now, so it will be interesting to hear what she has to say. My main issue with her right now is that she consistently refers to perpetrators with male pronouns and victims with female pronouns. When describing surveillance behaviors she says, "typically men" as the perpetrators of this behavior. While I understand that men cause more physical harm en masse in domestic abuse, women are certainly equal partners for snooping and checking up on partners. I know several women who get into their partner's emails and texts. I'm inclined to think women are more likely to commit that violation because it is more subvert control. This psychologist is well trained, intelligent, and credible, but does demonstrate gender bias in her evaluations.

the mind blower is when we dig into stats and realize two things: the majority of abuse is in reciprocally abusive relationships and in reciprocally abusive relationships, women are more often the instigators.

I’m not saying this to shift blame solely to women, just to articulate how our biases color the reality. Many people who could be described as both laypersons and experts still hold to using language that specifies men as the primary actors in abusive and dysfunctional relationships. When we have a clearer picture than ever before, it’s astonishing that people continue to peddle a narrative so contrary to facts

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

 

[Lavawind]

Johnny is not diagnosed with mental illness. Amber Heard is formally diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and Histrionic Personality Disorder based on several hours of testing with the currently most reliable diagnostic tools administered by Dr. Curry.

Histrionic personality disorder is no longer a thing. It’s very outdated.

 

[yeghor]

Histrionic personality disorder is no longer a thing. It’s very outdated.

It is still a thing.

DSM 5​

The current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM 5 (published in March 2022), defines histrionic personality disorder (in Cluster B) as:

A pervasive pattern of excessive emotionality and attention-seeking, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

• is uncomfortable in situations in which he or she is not the center of attention
• interaction with others is often characterized by inappropriate sexually seductive or provocative behavior
• displays rapidly shifting and shallow expression of emotions
• consistently uses physical appearance to draw attention to self
• has a style of speech that is excessively impressionistic and lacking in detail
• shows self-dramatization, theatricality, and exaggerated expression of emotion
• is suggestible, i.e., easily influenced by others or circumstances
• considers relationships to be more intimate than they actually are

The DSM 5 requires that a diagnosis for any specific personality disorder also satisfies a set of general personality disorder criteria.

ICD-10​

The World Health Organization's ICD-10 (2019) lists histrionic personality disorder as:

A personality disorder characterized by:

• shallow and labile affectivity,
• self-dramatization,
• theatricality,
• exaggerated expression of emotions,
• suggestibility,
• egocentricity,
• self-indulgence,
• lack of consideration for others,
• easily hurt feelings, and
• continuous seeking for appreciation, excitement and attention.

It is a requirement of ICD-10 that a diagnosis of any specific personality disorder also satisfies a set of general personality disorder criteria.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

I followed this trial because I think it is important for gender relations and a fuller understanding of domestic violence in society perpetrated by both genders. I do think Amber Heard made false accusations in an attempt to destroy Johnny Depp. I also think Depp had some dysfunctional responses to her and there is some degree it is understandable, but I also think he has subjugated anger and guilt about his abusive mother and unconsciously seeks out relationships with women who justify a response of anger, enabling him to express it.

I have to clean up my newsfeed now because it just won't stop. The verdict is in place, so it's over as far as I'm concerned. I do not like the constant berating of Amber Heard. It doesn't mean I think she is innocent, but people socially enjoy making fun of her and for what reason now? It's over. The court and jury analyzed evidence, and I think the jury was very clear and objective in their response.

I do know reasonable bloggers justifying the ongoing mocking and punishment by focusing on her being guilty and continuing to try various routes for personal gain. It makes more sense to ignore those tactics and move on. I don't enjoy that group attack, even when the person did something wrong. At some point it turns into social hate bonding and has nothing to do with justice and making things right. I wish for Amber to get counseling and stop getting triggered with such negative emotions. That would really suck. Sometimes I've gotten triggered privately and can glimpse how much that sucks. I don't like mean stuff regardless of why people are doing it.

EDIT: (a couple days later) It seems that the mainstream media is attacking the bloggers, so there is a new battle that goes beyond the original case.

 

[yeghor]

Outcome

...

I have to clean up my newsfeed now because it just won't stop. The verdict is in place, so it's over as far as I'm concerned. I do not like the constant berating of Amber Heard. It doesn't mean I think she is innocent, but people socially enjoy making fun of her and for what reason now? It's over. The court and jury analyzed evidence, and I think the jury was very clear and objective in their response.

I do know reasonable bloggers justifying the ongoing mocking and punishment by focusing on her being guilty and continuing to try various routes for personal gain. It makes more sense to ignore those tactics and move on. I don't enjoy that group attack, even when the person did something wrong. At some point it turns into social hate bonding and has nothing to do with justice and making things right...

Some guys may have experienced similar problems with their wives in the past and overidentify with the case cause maybe they weren't able to prove transgressions of their wives before the legal authorities so they carry a grudge.

While male aggression (antisocial PD) is easier to detect and prove, female aggression (BPD) is difficult in most cases because it usually takes a form that doesn't leave physical bruises.

One example that comes to my mind: I was shopping at a convenience store once and a lady suddenly started chatting with me (that doesn't happen much) and asked some questions to find out if I was shopping just for myself or I had a partner and then moved on to say that people thought the bruises on her face were due to her boyfriend hitting her but it wasn't so it was due to something else etc.

I got the gut feeling that she was angry at her boyfriend and wanted to hurt him back, so she saw me as an easy mark to cheat on her boyfriend and to then rub it on his face later on. I excused myself and left and just as I was leaving noticed another guy, whom must've overheard the discussion, chatting with the lady and hitting on her.

 

[yeghor]

Johnny Depp’s artwork dedicated to ‘Friends and Heroes’ sells out within hours