The question in this trial was not who was the abusive partner; it was whether Heard defamed Depp by writing an op-ed in which she identified herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse” and argued that “institutions protect men accused of abuse.”
Go ahead: re-read the op-ed. What you won’t find anywhere in it is Heard saying that Depp abused her. Instead, you will find her making statements that are not defamatory, but objectively true: that she became a public figure representing domestic violence; that her career suffered for it.

The trial has turned into a public orgy of misogyny. While most of the vitriol is nominally directed at Heard, it is hard to shake the feeling that really, it is directed at all women – and in particular, at those of us who spoke out about gendered abuse and sexual violence during the height of the #MeToo movement. We are in a moment of virulent antifeminist backlash, and the modest gains that were made in that era are being retracted with a gleeful display of victim-blaming at a massive scale. One woman has been made into a symbol of a movement that many view with fear and hatred, and she’s being punished for that movement. In this way, Heard is still in an abusive relationship. But now, it’s not just with Depp, but with the whole country.