Who Trolled Amber?: Inside the podcast exposing the horrors of the Depp/Heard trial

In April 2022, it was impossible to escape Depp v Heard. Even if you weren’t streaming every second of the court proceedings between Johnny and Amber, your feeds were undoubtedly clogged with related content. And by “related content” I mean content that primarily trashed Amber Heard. Perhaps you saw tweets declaring #JusticeForJohnny and #AmberIsAnAbuser, or watched people hammily acting out scenes from their marriage on TikTok, layered over with audio of Heard alleging domestic and sexual abuse by the actor, like a dystopian pantomime. Or perhaps you found the trial slipping into your offline, “real” life when getting coffee – the tip jars labelled “Amber” and “Johnny”, with wads of cash stuffed into Depp’s.

At the time, a few journalists and legal experts covering the trial, such as and , smelt a rat, and suggested that at least of the Amber Heard hate campaign must be inauthentic. After being inundated with suggested YouTube videos of Heard being “EXPOSED” on the stand, alongside ones of Depp visiting hospital patients dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow – videos I couldn’t seem to shake from my algorithm – I wrote a piece for , in which I accused die-hard Depp fans of having been