Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard is the best TV ever – I’d give it 5 stars

I’ve been watching it live – Depp vs Heard. Or, should I say, at times falling asleep to it.

Johnny Depp is suing his ex-wife Amber Heard for $50m over a domestic abuse column she wrote for The Washington Post in 2018 – even though it didn’t mention him. Heard is countersuing for $100m.

It’s live-streamed from the Fairfax County Courthouse in Virginia. For the culture desk, it’s all about live updates and writing news stories as more shocking twists arise.

As Depp has taken to the stand this week, it’s been riveting – like the best-ever TV.

The star apologised for sending his best friend texts about Heard saying he wanted to see her “rotting corpse decomposing in the f***ing trunk of a Honda Civic”.

Then he blamed his dark humour in his emails and texts on the writings of his old friend, the late Hunter S Thompson; and growing up on Monty Python.

In a jaw-dropping moment, Depp confessed he’s never watched the first film in the Pirates of the Caribbean series, despite first starring as Captain Jack Sparrow in 2003. “I didn’t see it. But I believe that the film did pretty well, apparently, and they wanted to keep going, making more and I was fine to do that,” he said, about The Curse of the Black Pearl.

He told the court about the moment his marriage to Heard first began to unravel, as he took his own boots off when he got home. “No, no, no that’s my job. You don’t do that, I do that”, was her alleged aggrieved response.

Then there is the episode with the “grotesque” finger injury – he claims Heard “hurled” a vodka bottle at him. “I was looking directly at my bone … sticking out … blood was pouring out.”

Ok, so we gave Better Call Saul’s new sixth season a five-star review earlier this week – but this is just as brilliant. I remember the televised OJ Simpson trial; but I’ve never seen a celebrity of Depp’s magnitude talking so openly in a civil suit.

This is clearly the movie of Depp’s life. It’s got everything – from Depp talking about his upbringing, saying he was abused by his mother Betty Sue Palmer, who died in 201, to his struggle with popping pills aged 11 and dealing with fame.

He talks about the good and bad times with Heard. They met on the set of the 2011 movie The Rum Diary. Depp fondly called her Slim and she renamed him Steve after Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart’s characters in To Have and Have Not. Then it all went terribly wrong.

I’ve never really cared about Depp’s private life – until it was turned into a live soap opera.

With livestreamed trials like this, do we need TV? It’s gripping and bizarre. I know it’s real life. But, personally, if I could, I’d definitely give it five stars. I’m just waiting for Paul Bettany, James Franco and Elon Musk to take the stand live as witnesses. It can’t get better than this.

Yours,

Charlotte Cripps

Culture writer