[imagesource: Reuters]

A male juror has spoken out about why the jury favoured actor Johnny Depp in the (now infamous) defamation case he launched against his ex-wife, Amber Heard.

The jury awarded damages to both, although Depp’s $15 million ($10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million dollars in punitive damages) far outweighed Heard’s $2 million (compensatory damages, with no punitive damages).

Heard has been vying for the last word, with an appeal against the jurors’ decision and a sit-down interview with journalist Savannah Guthrie via NBC News being released.

The male juror is the first juror to publicly break his silence, via ABC News’s Good Morning America, saying that “a lot of Amber’s story didn’t add up”.

The Telegraph notes how he and the other jurors said they struggled to believe the actress, using the expression “crocodile tears” to describe her reaction:

“The majority of the jury felt that she was the aggressor. The crying, the facial expressions that she had, the staring at the jury. All of us were very uncomfortable… she would answer one question and she would be crying and two seconds later she would turn ice cold.”

The juror said that he thinks both parties mistreated one another, but ultimately the Pirates of the Caribbean actor was more believable.

“What I think is truthful is that they were abusive towards each other,” he told ABC. “I don’t think that makes either of them right or wrong, but to rise to the level of what she was claiming, there wasn’t enough evidence that really supported what she was saying.”

He may have spoken about a mutually abusive relationship, but there’s no doubting that the jury’s finding does the damage of priming other victims and survivors of domestic abuse to think that there is no way to go up against a powerful man and come out the other side unscathed.

Furthermore, the juror said they reached their verdict using only the evidence presented during the six-week case – even though it became one of the most heavily scrutinised civil trials in US history. He denied her claim that it was a trial by social media, revealing that three of the jurors do not have Facebook or Twitter accounts.

The seven-person panel passing judgment consisted of five men and two women.

Deadline has other details about why the jury sided with Depp, or you can watch a segment below:

EXCLUSIVE: A juror in the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard defamation trial said what the jury concluded was “they were both abusive to each other” but Heard’s team failed to prove Depp’s abuse was physical. https://t.co/Ax4SMZUq2J pic.twitter.com/EMiMeqh5pn

— Good Morning America (@GMA) June 16, 2022

Meanwhile, Depp has been making hay while the sun shines, releasing a song and starring in an upcoming docuseries about a blow-besotted outlaw and buddy of his.

[source:telegraph]