Ex-WAG Phoebe Burgess said she felt obligated to comment on the defamation of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard as things took a nasty turn in her personal life.
The ex-wife of a prominent NRL player weighed in on the Johnny Heard and Amber Heard dispute, saying: pirates of the caribbean star has managed to make sure that “women are not believed”.
Phoebe Burgess, the ex-wife of former South Sydney player Sam Burgess, took to Instagram late Sunday to argue that the shocking public reaction to the trial will deter other victims from coming forward.
Depp, 56, is suing his ex-wife for $50 million ($A72 million), alleging she defamed him in her 2018 Washington Post opinion piece in which she described herself as a victim of domestic violence.
Heard, 36, is suing for a $100 million ($A144 million) counterclaim, alleging that Depp defamed her when he said she lied about her abuse allegations.
Australian ex-WAG Phoebe said on the social media platform that the case, and the way Heard is being handled, could deter other women from pursuing allegations of domestic violence.
“If any of you are uncomfortable with the way Johnny Depp’s libel suit against Amber Heard has been portrayed and consumed, I hear you, sister,” Phoebe said in the post.
“This man [Depp] took this legal action — demanding $100 million — after a British judge found him to be a ‘wife beater,’ continued Phoebe.
in 2020, Depp lost a defamation lawsuit against The sun newspaper that had called him a “wife beater”† Heard was the key witness in the British court who said she was beaten on 12 of the 14 alleged occasions.
“If his mission was to send a signal to all abusers and misogynists that women will not be believed, he succeeded,” Phoebe wrote.
“Victims have reinforced one of their worst fears… ‘Nobody will believe me’.
“And when it comes to leaving, I’m afraid women are thinking… ‘maybe he’s doing a Depp on me’.”
Accompanying her was a screenshot of a troll’s message privately sent to Phoebe via Instagram.
The post called her an “absolute loser,” “Australia’s very own Amber Heard” and said her children would despise her.
Those comments seemed to relate to Burgess’ accusations in 2020where she claimed she was a victim of domestic violence during her four-year marriage to Sam Burgess.
Burgess was sacked as an assistant coach at South Sydney in October 2020 after Phoebe made allegations of domestic violence and drug use.
The Rabbitohs player denied all charges and any wrongdoing.
The Rabbitohs player cleared of charges and the NRL reinstated him in his role. Phoebe called the decision to bring her husband back into the club “horrible.”
The NRL star admitted to having an affair and also driving under the influence of drugs.
“They found cocaine in my system while I was driving. Pretty embarrassing. Pretty ashamed of that,” Sam Burgess said in an interview this year.
“For the past 18 months I felt like a loser. My marriage broke down. I had just stopped exercising. My ex-father-in-law had filed an AVO against me. Two days after I retired, I broke up my marriage.”
The couple share son Billy, 3, and daughter Poppy, 5.
Commenting on the insulting message she received on Instagram, Phoebe said, “I hope that by the time my children are safe at a point where they are old enough to despise anything in this world, they only despise how we do it.” dealing with the problem of abuse…”
The World’s Horrible Reaction to Amber Heard
Memes and videos flooding social media mocking 36-year-old Heard have outraged emergency services for victims of domestic violence.
On Instagram and Twitter, hashtags are doing the rounds referring to Heard as “Amber Turd”, a “liar” and a “gold digger”.
On YouTube, viewers under lifestreams from the courtroom have accused the Aquarius star of being “manipulative, calculating and possibly a con artist”.
And TikTok doesn’t do any better, with a viral clip on the platform, targeting Heard, stating, “He could have killed you, he had every right.”
On the penultimate day of the defamation trial, Amber Heard revealed she had received thousands of death threats, with some trolls even threatening to kill her baby.
“People want to kill me, and they tell me that every day. People want to kill my baby in the microwave and they’re telling me that,” Heard told the judges.
“I regularly, if not daily, receive hundreds of death threats. Thousands since the beginning of this process.”
Heard has a one-year-old daughter, Oonagh Paige Heard.
CEO of Full stop AustraliaHayley Foster, previously called social media commentary around the trial “extremely disturbing”†
“Not just for Heard, but for every victim survivor who observes and sees the attack that takes place when someone speaks about the abuse they experienced,” she told news.com.au.
— With Rebekah Scanlan
#Phoebe #Burgess #weighs #Heard #case