Search icon

News

04th Jun 2022

Psychiatrist who testified for Amber Heard calls out ‘horrific backlash’ from Depp fans

Kieran Galpin

Amber Heard

‘Never in my life have I been the target of such voluminous amounts of hate’

A psychiatrist who testified for Amber Heard in her now-failed lawsuit has written an op-ed eerily familiar to Heard’s own article.

Dr David Spiegel, who testified for Amber Heard, 36, late in the trial, has written about the “horrific backlash” he experienced. Spiegel had argued that Johnny Depp, 58, exhibited behaviour “consistent” with a “perpetrator of intimate partner violence.”

After the trial wrapped up earlier this week, with a Depp win, Spiegel coined an article entitled: “I Testified in the Heard vs. Depp Trial. The Backlash Has Been Horrific.”

Sounds almost familiar.

Describing Heard as “nice, very cordial and very polite”, the psychiatrist said he was nervous about appearing on television. After testifying, Spiegel returned to his hotel room, where his wife told him not to look at “what’s being said.”

“The volume of it, from the personal attacks on who I am and what I present like, to what I look like and say, was obviously a little hurtful,” he explained. “My WebMD page has now been closed to comments, but if you looked at the site beforehand there were probably seven or eight reviews and all of a sudden on Monday, May 23 and Tuesday, May 24 there were hundreds, so it was pretty obvious what had happened.”

“Dr spiegel needs looking into after today’s performance! He looks and sounds like he is the one who needs psychiatric help,” wrote one scathing reviewer.

Spiegel also wished that Depp had spoken out about the amount of abuse circulating around the trial’s verdict. “Listen, I understand you are upset, but there are ways to express how to be upset,” he wished Depp said.

“Never in my life have I been the target of such voluminous amounts of hate, ever,” he added. “I will process the emotion, but it will always be there; the knowledge that I was on the receiving end of such venom.”

Related links: