On November 6th, 2020, Johnny Depp was forced into parting ways with Warner Bros. and leave his role of Grindelwald in the Fantastic Beasts series over recent events. Those recent events were Depp’s recent loss in his libel lawsuit against The Sun, a tabloid in the United Kingdom. In light of Amber Heard’s (Depp’s Ex-Wife) allegations against Depp, alleging that he was abusive towards her throughout their marriage. Heard’s first allegations came out in 2016, along with a video of Depp hailing insults at Heard during their vacation in Australia. Public opinion quickly shifted to Heard’s side, and many were quick to condemn Johnny and his supposed abuse. The decision made by Warner Bros. to keep Johnny Depp in his role as Grindelwald for the second Fantastic Beasts movie “Fantastic Beasts and the Crimes of Grindelwald” and Disney also decided to allow Depp to continue on in his role as Jack Sparrow in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise and 2017’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales”, despite the allegations from Heard.

However, in recent times, many recordings and pictures have been released, as well as allegations from Depp that in fact, Amber Heard herself was the abuser in the relationship, accusations of hitting, yelling, pots and pans being thrown, and even Depp claiming that the Heard cut off the tip of Depp’s finger. Despite all of the proof coming out in Depp’s favor, The Sun published an article in 2018 titled “Wife Abuser Johnny Depp will ‘Never Work in Hollywood Again’. Depp filed a libel case against The Sun in 2018 for defamation of character. In the lawsuit, no writer, representative, or worker at The Sun testified in court. During the case and the years after her allegations against Depp, Heard continued to campaign for justice for women that have suffered through physical abuse, using the angle of her alleged abuse from Depp. Meanwhile, plenty of evidence, including photos and voice recordings were being made public. Phots showed pictures of bruises and bumps on Depp’s face, including the cigarette burn mark allegedly left by Heard on Depp’s, as well as a photo of the severed tip of Depp’s finger, which was severed when Heard through a bottle of alcohol at Depp. The voice recordings released alongside the photos contain an admission from Heard that she lied about being struck by Depp. She also admitted in the recording that she struck Depp and openly mocked him for asking for help from their friend Travis, telling Depp that he was ‘acting like a baby” and “come save me” in reference to Johnny’s call to Travis.

When the photos and recordings were released, public opinion soon shifted to the Depp. Unlike Heard, Depp had managed to produce evidence that he was abused by Heard whereas Heard only offered up allegations and testimonies. While Heard also released photos of her bruised face, there is no proof that that was Depp’s doing. The difference between Heard’s bruised face photos and how those are not proof versus the photos of Depp’s bruised face is that Depp has the proof from EHard herself saying that she hit him. Around the same time, it was revealed that Heard applied makeup to court to make it seem as though she had bruises from Depp’s abuse. The public consensus now heavily leans out of Heard’s favor when the photos and voice recordings were released. However, despite all the evidence against Heard, including proof of her lying about her abuse and her admittance to abusing Johnny, the court case found that Heard’s allegations were founded and that The Sun was well within their rights to refer to Depp as a “wife abuser” despite the fact that there was no evidence of Depp beating Amber Heard and Depp having not been convicted of anything at the moment.

I believe that it is ridiculous that someone that has no proof has lost against someone who had evidence to prove their side of the story. These types of situations have a negative impact on male victims of abuse in any form. Most male victims already are afraid to speak up about abuse that they may suffer, and in situations like this, where a man has proof of being abused and is still somehow guilty in the eyes of the court. This situation will have negative impacts on male victims and dissuade them from coming out and sharing their stories out of fear that it won’t make a difference. The fact of the matter is, there is no concrete evidence that proves that Johnny Depp is an abuser. There is, however, proof that Amber Heard is the abuser in this situation. While Depp lost his most lucrative role in the past few years, Heard, somewhat unsurprisingly was allowed to keep her role as Queen Mera in DC’s “Aquaman 2”, a film that is being produced and distributed by none other than Warner Bros., the same studio that fired Johnny Depp over allegations that are unfounded, decided to keep Amber Heard, someone who has evidence against her proving allegations of abuse. Heard gets to keep working in Hollywood and keeps getting to earn millions of dollars from lucrative films such as this one, while Johnny Depp, the victim in this situation from what we know right now, is almost being blacklisted. And they say that there are no double standards in Hollywood.