Why celebrities are ‘unliking’ Johnny Depp’s Instagram post celebrating trial win

The whole world watched the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trial closely.

Several Hollywood celebrities – including Sophie Turner, Bella Hadid and Robert Downey Jr – have ‘unliked’ Johnny Depp’s Instagram post celebrating his victory in the defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard.

The spate of ‘like removals’ was first noticed by Twitter and Reddit users after documents from the case were unsealed recently.

In June, a Virginia had awarded $10 million in damages to Johnny Depp after finding that a 2018 newspaper column penned by Heard was defamatory. Heard, who counter-sued, was awarded $2 million in compensatory damages, but no punitive damages.

Unsealed court documents, however, paint a slightly less flattering portrait of Depp, who was accused of physical abuse by Amber Heard. Depp maintained throughout the trial that he never abused Heard – but the documents show that the couple’s therapist confirmed Heard was a victim of “intimate partner violence”.

They also revealed texts from Depp and his assistant that almost confirmed Heard’s allegations that her ex-husband kicked and punched her on a private plane, reports Jezebel. The previously sealed documents showed that Depp’s legal team had planned to use nude photos of Heard to paint her as a sex worker, crude text messages between Depp and Marilyn Manson and the fact that Heard willingly walked away from a small fortune in divorce proceedings.

After the documents gained media attention earlier this month, people began to notice that several celebrities had apparently ‘unliked’ Depp’s Instagram post in which he alleged that “false, very serious and criminal allegations” against him had a “seismic impact” on his life and career.

An extensive but not exhaustive list of the celebrities who removed their ‘likes’ was compiled by Buzzfeed News. The list includes Bella Hadid, Sophie Turner and Joey King.

Depp’s post-trial post has registered over 19 million ‘likes’ on Instagram to date.