Johnny Depp-Amber Heard: Latest developments, possible appeal

Johnny Depp officially on TikTok. The 58-year-old actor joined the platform days after winning his defamation case against his ex-wife, Amber Heard. He put up his first video, a montage of himself, and in the caption he thanked fans for their support, adding, quote, we will all move forward together. Depp already has over 5 million followers. Heard responding to that, saying that as he's moving forward, women's rights are moving backward, saying that the verdict's message to victims of domestic violence is to be afraid to stand up and speak out. And there's been a lot of criticism about the case as a whole. I want to bring in legal analyst Neema Haddadi. Neema, thanks so much for being with us here on the show. The story continues here. There's a lot of back and forth on social media between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. This isn't going away. There's talks of appeals on the table. There's talks of Johnny Depp dropping these damages that he deserves, according to the jury out in Virginia. What are your thoughts on all of this? I think this is expected. I think Amber Heard lost in the court of public appeal. I think that she doesn't have a choice to try to change the narrative. I think the best way to do that would probably be an appeal. I think on the other side, Johnny Depp, he won. I think everything that he'd lost in the last three, four years in terms of credibility, he won it all back. I expected Amber Heard to appeal her case. So with an appeal, what would that look like? Because her team has been going on TV and saying, yes, we are going to do this, but I haven't seen anything official yet. What potentially would that look like if they decided to move forward? I think their arguments are going to be based around social media and the jury not being sequestered, which makes sense. Normally, a high profile case like this, a jury does get sequestered and isolated, but this was a civil case. The cost would have been high. I was surprised that they weren't at the end of the day. But I think that a judge might agree with her. Other than that, the only other way for her to be successful in the appeal would be if there's new evidence, and I don't see that happening. The judge was very careful in this case. There was cameras always in the courtroom. I don't think there'll be any way in terms of new evidence or any type of issues like that in which Amber Heard could be successful for an appeal. Well, Amber Heard's lawyer, Elaine Bretthoff, you could see her there inside of the courtroom. When asked if Amber Heard would be able to pay over $10 million to Johnny Depp, she said she wouldn't be able to. What does that do? I don't think it does much. I don't think Johnny Depp's going to go after Amber Heard and try to get the money. It's not about money for him. He wants something that is much greater than that, his credibility. I don't think he's going to try to tarnish it and go after this $10 million. I think there's going to be a lot more money on the table now that he won this trial. I think this is all just trying to change the narrative on Amber Heard's part. Well, once again, Amber Heard's lawyers saying that if she didn't get the favorable verdict, I mean, this was in closing arguments, they said that this would really be difficult for abuse victims moving forward, specifically sexual abuse victims. They say that you are basically telling these victims you need to be perfect in order for people to believe you. For domestic abuse cases, sexual abuse cases, physical abuse cases, what do you think that this case did for them? The issue becomes Amber Heard looked like a liar because she was proven to have lied. That's the issue in this case. You can try to convolute it all she wants and talk about this is bad now, you have to be perfect if you accuse anybody. I think all of that, it's just throwing mud on the wall. Amber Heard lied. She was proven to be a liar. In that entire case, there wasn't one instance of abuse that she could show. And as a result, she was penalized. I think the goal for Amber Heard's team is to change the narrative. And that's what they're trying to do. But they're not doing a very good job. Even if this appeal was successful, what is she going to do? Is she going to go through a trial again? And live through that nightmare? I don't know. I wouldn't even be surprised if they won the appeal. And for whatever reason, that trial doesn't move forward. Because the last thing that I think Amber Heard wants to do is try to take that stand again. So how would an appeal work? And how long do appeals typically take? I mean, it could take years, right? Yeah, they're going to go in. Again, it depends on what grounds the appeal is going to be on. I think it's going to be that issue with sequestering the jury. They're going to say that the jury wasn't isolated, and the jury went and they probably were influenced by outside sources. I think they can be successful. But at the end of the road, I don't really think they're looking for a new trial. Right now, Amber Heard has been villainized. She needs to do anything that she can do to try to change the narrative and try to redeem some portion of her reputation. Do you foresee Johnny Depp's team dropping this and saying, she doesn't, you know, need to pay up or anything? Just don't talk to us again? Do you foresee that as an option? Yeah, I could see that in a few months. Him being the nice guy, even though he's been wronged in the manner that he had, this woman tried to destroy his life. He's going to come back and say, you know what, you're not even worth that $10 million. I'm going to have nothing to do with you. I can definitely see his team doing that. All right. Well, only time will tell. And still the social media continuing to mount on this case. Johnny Depp, now becoming an influencer overnight. Whitney Heard, Amber Heard's sister, coming out and putting a new hashtag, I stand with Amber Heard. So we'll just have to wait and see when it comes to the appeals on this, if there's any movement from either legal team here. Thank you so much for joining us here on the show, Nima. Any last thoughts? No, no, no. I think enough has been said about this story. All right. Thank you so much. We'll talk to you soon.