A juror from the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard defamation trial spoke exclusively to “Good Morning America” about the trial verdict, which ruled that Heard defamed Depp when she wrote a 2018 Washington Post op-ed alluding to her past claims of domestic violence. Heard is ordered to pay $10.35 million in damages to Depp as a result. The juror, one of five men on the seven-person jury, told “GMA” that Heard’s emotional testimony during the trial was not realistic.
“The crying, the facial expressions that she had, the staring at the jury. All of us were very uncomfortable,” the juror said. “She would answer one question and she would be crying, and two seconds later she would turn ice cold. Some of us used the expression ‘crocodile tears.’”
“A lot of the jury felt what [Depp] was saying, at the end of the day, was more believable,” the juror added. “He just seemed a little more real in terms of how he was responding to questions. His emotional state was very stable throughout.”
Heard’s team has repeatedly claimed that social media and all of the vitriol against Heard on platforms such as TikTok swayed the jury in favor of Depp. As Heard told NBC News this week, “I think even the most well-intentioned juror … it would have been impossible to avoid this.”
The juror denied such accusations about social media, saying, “We followed the evidence … myself and other jurors don’t use Twitter or Facebook. Others who had it, made a point not to talk about it.”
“What I think is truthful is that they were both abusive to each other,” the juror concluded. “I don’t think 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.”
The jury noted that one “fiasco” that hurt Heard during the trial was the reveal that she had not yet donated her $7 million divorce settlement to charity, despite claiming to do so.
“She goes on a talk show in the U.K. and the video shows her sitting there, telling the host she gave all that money away,” the juror said. “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.”
Heard told NBC News that she “pledged” her $7 million settlement to charity and is still committed to donating it over time.
Watch the juror’s full interview with “Good Morning America” in the video below.
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