Johnny Depp v Amber Heard courtroom notebook sells for $15k on eBay

A notebook purportedly containing never-before-seen details from the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard defamation trial has been sold for thousands of dollars on eBay.

The notebook was listed by Larry Foreman, a defense attorney from Kentucky who attended the defamation trial in Fairfax, Virginia. The “top secret” notebook includes about 20 pages of jury observations from Foreman, who sat in on the trial on 17 May, and from 23 May to 26 May. Each page contains “never before seen” notes from the juror’s reactions to Dr Hughes and Amber Heard – which were not shown on television – as well as roughly “100+ tweets of top secret information about the jurors”.

Since it was listed on 1 June at $0.99, the notebook received 142 bids before selling on 8 June for $14,969. The eBay listing indicates that the funds will be donated to the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles.

The historic defamation trial saw actor Johnny Depp suing his ex-wife Amber Heard for $50m for implying he abused her in a 2018Washington Post op-ed. Although she didn’t name him, he claims her allegations impacted his ability to work. She pursued a $100m counterclaim.

On 1 June, the jury determined Heard defamed Depp on all three counts and awarded him $10m in compensatory damages and $5m in punitive damages. Heard was awarded $2m compensatory damages.

Throughout the past six weeks, social media has been a circus of viral memes and conspiracies from Depp fans aimed at Heard, which many have criticised as making light of a domestic abuse allegation.

Over on TikTok, user Shannon Burns (@itsshannonburns) was not surprised that Foreman’s notebook was sold for such a high price, saying in a video that the “whole court case turned into a huge spectacle, so it’s not surprising that he actually ended up selling the notebook on eBay for just under $15,000.”

She captioned the TikTok video: “Who would pay this much for a notebook?”

More than 590k people viewed Burns’s TikTok, leaving many commenters divided on how a courtroom notebook could be worth so much money.

“This whole thing feels ick,” said one TikToker.

“Ew people are weird,” wrote another user.

“This is madness,” a third person said.

Others defended Foreman’s right to sell the notebook because he had donated the funds to a charity.

“It’s for charity. Why leave that out,” said one person.

“He donated all that money? That’s an amazing human right there,” another user said.

One person pointed out that Foreman had “donated” to the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, rather than “pledge” funds to the organisation, a possible dig to Amber Heard who has yet to pay the organisation her entire pledged amount.

During the defamation trial, Heard was accused of lying about making a $7m donation pledge to two charities with the funds from her divorce payout. Depp’s attorneys claimed the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles didn’t receive the $3.5m donation, while Heard maintained that she had been unable to complete the payments because of costs from Depp suing her.

This is not the first time a piece of memorabilia from the Depp-Heard trial has gone on sale for a large amount of money. Some spectators have sold their courthouse distributed wristbands on eBay for as much as $5,000 (£4,000).