Phoebe Bridgers defends Amber Heard after public response to Johnny Depp’s trial
Phoebe Bridgers has added her thoughts to the Johnny Depp versus Amber Heard defamation trial and has particularly weighed in on the online abuse that Heard received after the trial’s conclusion, calling it “disgusting”.
The trial came to a close in May and resulted in Johnny Depp’s victory after a longwinded and highly-publicised process. Bridgers claimed that the whole ordeal had been “so upsetting” to her.
While talking to Teen Vogue, Bridgers said, “I think that there’s been this falsehood – and I think queer people are included in this – of having to be the perfect victim, or the perfect survivor, or the perfect representation for your marginalised community. If Amber Heard exhibited any neurotic behaviour, it was held against her. Then Johnny Depp, out of his mouth, admitted some of the most violent, crazy shit in court, and it’s somehow like, people aren’t surprised?”
The singer then went on to say that the trial’s publicity, especially online, had been treated like a “fandom war”. She also felt that despite the progress that cancel culture had made over the last few years, it needed to hold more people accountable.
Bridgers continued, “I mean, is [cancel culture] real? Who’s lost their job politically? [Weinstein] is in jail for actual sex crimes, and then anything short of that is, maybe, they lose a couple friends or lose a couple jobs. Then five years later, they’re like, ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry.’ And they come back, but they never apologise – they never go away.”
Bridgers had turned her attention to more political themes on her last full-length album, 2020’s Punisher. However, she did not necessarily think of the album as a “political statement” as opposed to just an expression of what had been on her mind at the time. She added, “Whatever I’m angry about now, I’m sure it will come to the fore in whatever I make next.”
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