Johnny Depp And Amber Heard’s Trial Takes A Turn For The Surreal

Johnny Depp’s defamation lawsuit against Amber Heard has taken a surreal turn, as makeup brand Milani took to TikTok to turn footage of the trial into content, an advertisement masquerading as an “epic clapback” that has been viewed at least 4.6 million times.

In the TikTok clip, Milani pushes back against a claim made by one of Amber Heard’s lawyers, that Heard used one of the company’s concealers to cover up bruises during her abusive marriage to Johnny Depp.

Milani’s video points out that said concealer was released in 2017, a year after Heard filed for divorce from Depp; the footage plays to a remixed version of the Backyardigans song “International Super Spy,” a popular audio clip used for memes.

It’s a surreal clip to emerge from an excruciatingly ugly trial, in which Depp is accusing Heard of sabotaging his career by implying in an op-ed article that she had been a victim of domestic violence from Depp; the defamation lawsuit asks for $50 million in damages.

During the trial, the toxic relationship between the two troubled stars has been laid bare for the public to see, with Depp’s deeply misogynistic text messages coming to light, along with unsettling audio clips highlighting the worst moments of their time together.

A makeup brand gathering clips from the simmering dumpster fire to promote their product is a bizarre, but inevitable twist to the story, as the trial seemed destined to devolve into farce from the beginning.

Footage of the trial has been live-streaming on various platforms since April 11, like a star-studded episode of Judge Judy, with multiple celebrities dragged into the mess.

The controversial case has been fermenting online for the past few years, sparking bitter arguments and fueling the neverending culture war, as internet users project their own life experiences onto Depp and Heard’s relationship; it’s not a situation that inspires nuanced discussion about domestic abuse, that’s for sure.

Ever since the trial first aired, TikTok users have been doing what they do best, mining the footage for content, repackaging clips, removing context and inserting opinions, as narratives are pushed and the messy, depressing reality of the case is reduced to memes.

Nothing, it seems, is off-limits; everything is content, and content can be used to push merchandise, even if said merchandise is associated with a domestic abuse case.