Yahoo Movies Juror in Johnny Depp trial breaks silence, says jury didn't buy Amber Heard's 'crocodile tears'
One of the jurors in the contentious and closely watched defamation trial between Johnny Depp and his ex-wife Amber Heard has opened up about the bombshell verdict, saying that some members of the jury didn't believe Heard was sincere in her testimony.
In an interview that aired Thursday on Good Morning America, an unidentified male juror became the first member of the jury to speak publicly about the six-week trial. (The jury consisted of five men and two women, and the judge in the trial previously ruled that their names will be sealed for at least a year.) The juror, who asked not to be named, said that when Heard cried on the stand, he thought they were "crocodile tears."
"It didn't come across as believable," the juror said of Heard's emotional testimony. "It seemed like she was able to flip the switch on her emotions. She would answer one question and she would be crying and two seconds later she would turn ice cold. It didn't seem natural."
The juror also didn't like how Heard looked directly at the jury while answering questions. "All of us were very uncomfortable" with that, he said, adding that Heard was given bad advice on how to act on the stand. As for Depp, the juror said he "just seemed a little more real in terms of how he responded to questions. His emotional state was very stable throughout."
JIM LO SCALZO/POOL/POOL/AFP via Getty Images Amber Heard
Throughout the trial, the juror said, it wasn't just how Heard comported herself on the stand that made him doubt her sincerity. He said the majority of the jury considered Heard to be the aggressor in the relationship after concluding "they were both abusive to each other" and that Heard's legal team failed to prove Depp's abuse was physical.
"They had their husband-wife arguments. They were both yelling at each other," the juror said. "I don't think that makes either of them right or wrong. That's what you do when you get into an argument, I guess. 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 juror also stated that the pictures Heard presented of Depp after a purported drug and alcohol binge didn't make an impact. "If you mix alcohol and marijuana, that's where you usually end up — passed out," he said. "We discussed at length that a lot of the drugs she said he used, most of them were downers. And you usually don't get violent on downers. You become a zombie, as those pictures show." (Depp did, however, admit to using cocaine, a stimulant, during his testimony. Heard testified that he did it around her frequently.)
Addressing the photos Heard's team presented showing bruising on her face, the juror said he doubted their authenticity, partly because of the defense's claim that the actress "never goes outside without makeup on."
"Yet she goes to file the restraining order without makeup on," the juror said. "And it just so happens her publicist is with her. Those things add up and start to become hard to believe."
The trial concluded earlier this month, with the jury largely siding with Depp and determining that Heard defamed him when she wrote a 2018 Washington Post op-ed about her experiences as a domestic violence survivor. Heard never named Depp in the piece, but his lawyers argued that references to him were clear and damaged his reputation.
The unnamed juror told GMA that Heard made a big mistake writing the op-ed. "If she didn't do any of this stuff with the op-eds, Johnny Depp could have helped her out in her career," he said. "They didn't leave things on a nasty turn [when they divorced]. It turned nasty after the op-ed."
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