When red carpets send a shiver down your spine
On Sunday night (5 June) TLC cashes in on the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard train wreck with a two-part documentary, produced by Discovery's streaming platform Discovery+.
It airs at 21h00, with a repeat on Saturday 11 June at 22h55 and isn't about the latest trial that Johnny Depp won.
It's about his UK libel case against News Group Newspapers Ltd, that happened before this latest American trial.
Flashback to 2020 >> when he sued The Sun newspaper and journalist Dan Woottan for an article they ran in which they claimed he'd abused Amber Heard and labelled him a "wife beater".
This was the headline of the article:
"GONE POTTY
How Can J K Rowling be 'genuinely happy' casting wife beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?"
Both of them testified at the trial and Judge Andrew Nicol ruled that Amber Heard's evidence was "substantially true" and Johnny Depp lost the case.
You'll find an overview of it here:
Depp v News Group Newspapers Ltd
Flashforward to now >> and it's a very different situation.
As you no doubt know, Johnny Depp won his defamation case against Amber Heard this week, winning $15-million in damages, which was reduced to $10,350-million.
This was because the trial was held in the state of Virginia and they have a limit on the amount that can be awarded for punitive damages.
Amber Heard also won damages, to the value of $2-million in her countersuit, where she claimed Johnny Depp's lawyer had defamed her with three statements that he made.
She won damages for one of these comments and according to her lawyer, she's going to appeal the overall verdict.
The seven person jury found that the headline of the article she wrote for The Washington Post and two statements that she made within it were done with "
actual malice".
You'll find a blow-by-blow of things on the wikipedia page here:
Depp v. Heard
Off topic but just to say... it's bizarre talking about them because if you only use their first name it sounds as if you know them - which we don't - and if you only use their last names it sounds like a news report. Which this isn't.;)
As for what to expect from the TLC documentary... it examines the evidence used throughout the legal proceedings in the UK trial, including video footage, photographs, text messages and audio recordings made by them both.
According to Discovery, it provides "a unique analysis of what really happened behind the headlines, and explores the hugely important and complex issue of domestic abuse."
It also features interviews with the lawyers that represented both sides, David Sherborne and Sasha Wass QC.
Will it change your mind about how things turned out this week?
If you were on the jury, how would you have voted?