Johnny Depp and Amber Heard are both actors in popular movies and TV shows, such as Walt Disney’s Alice in Wonderland and CBS’ Criminal Minds. They met on the set of The Rum Diary and started dating in 2012. The two married in 2015 but later divorced in 2017. After divorcing, Heard filed for a restraining order against Depp claiming that he attacked her and abused her physically, emotionally, and, verbally. Depp denied all of the abuse, but her lawyers said that the abuse happened while he was under the influence. Before the court made the order official, Heard dropped the case.
Depp sued Heard for defamation in 2018 after she made a statement in The Washington Post about being a public figure having dealt with domestic violence. She never said Depp’s name however, his lawyer argues that the statement was clearly about him. The media took the domestic abuse allegations very seriously and began to “cancel” Depp. This ruined his reputation and got him released from many companies and his characters, such as Jack Sparrow, the leading man in Disney in Pirates of the Caribbean movie series and the star villain, Gellert Grindelwald in Warner Bros.’ Fantastic Beasts movie series.
During the trials that started on April 11, 2022, it has come out that Depp seemed to be the primary victim of domestic abuse from his relationship with Heard. Their former marriage counselor came out and she says she recalls mutual abuse during their relationship. This trial is still ongoing so there is no final verdict just yet. However, this is a prime example that men can get abused too.
“There’s this stigma that men are strong, and that they’re not men if they can’t handle it [abuse] and I just think it’s wrong” says freshman Dayanara Rodriguez
For some people when they think of abuse they’d think of a woman being the victim. But women can be just as abusive as men can. Who is the abuser doesn’t matter though, all forms of abusive maltreatment is never okay. This also ties into the fact that men get told to “be tough” and “suck it up” and all these things but really they have feelings too. Because of this men don’t typically come out about their abuse like women more frequently, comparatively do. According to the CDC, one in seven men age 18+ in the U.S. have been the victim of physical violence by an intimate partner. They don’t only get abused by partners but by family members too. Just because they make up the smaller population of people that report abuse doesn’t mean they don’t experience abuse.
“We don’t actually know what happened and probably won’t know for a while but the abuse between them was not okay and will never be okay. I’m glad Johnny said something about it,” says freshman Alyssa Santana.