Outspoken British broadcaster Piers Morgan has declared an "absolute slam-dunk for Johnny Depp [and] total wipe-out for Amber Heard" in the former couple's US defamation trial.
Concluding the six-week trial that featured explicit and graphic evidence of abuse claims, the jury ruled Heard defamed Depp and should pay him US$15 million in damages.
However, Heard was also awarded US$2 million in damages for one proven defamation claim.
On Twitter, Morgan claimed the jury found Heard guilty "of lying through her back teeth about a man" and mocked news outlet The Guardian for "attacking men" with a subsequent opinion piece by columnist Moira Donegan.
The column describes the trial as "an orgy of misogyny" and evidence of a long-awaited backlash to the #MeToo movement rearing its head.
"The forces of misogynist reaction are perhaps even stronger now for having been temporarily repressed," Donegan wrote.
"Where once women refused, en masse, to keep men's secrets, or to remain silent about the truth of their own lives, now, a resurgence of sexism, virulent online harassment, and the threat of lawsuits, all aim to compel women back into silence - by force."
Donegan said the court case itself could be seen as an extension of Depp's abuse of Heard and "a way to prolong his humiliation and control over her".
As well as text messages Depp sent friends joking about murdering Heard and defiling her corpse, Donegan republished a 2016 text he sent a friend that seemingly predicted the trial and its verdict.
"She is begging for global humiliation... she is going to get it," Depp said about his then-wife.
