While the masses were rapt as Johnny Depp and Amber Heard hashed it out on livestreams — the people in the courtroom were struggling to stay awake.
Judy Bellinger, the court stenographer for the Depp v. Heard defamation trial, has dropped some bombshell revelations about the contentious six-week courtroom marathon.
“There were a few jurors who were dozing off,” Bellinger told the Law & Crime network on Monday, admitting “it was tough” to sit through the many hours of testimony.
Bellinger has also observed that the sleeping jurors were in both the front and back rows, and they particularly struggled during the video depositions.
“There were a lot of video depositions, and they would just sit there — and all of a sudden I’d see their head drop,” she added, detailing the hours of pretaped segments that augmented the already lengthy in-person testimonies on the stand.
The stenographer also noted that the most attentive juror was an alternate who was not even involved in the final verdict.
“Unfortunately, the one alternate that was on there — she was probably the one that listened the most,” Bellinger said. “I watched her facial expressions. She was very deeply into every word that was being said. I thought she would’ve made a great juror, and she did not get to see it to the end. She was paying close attention.”
The Post has reached out to representatives for Depp and Heard for comment.
Meanwhile, Bellinger’s presence in court also sparked a bizarre viral conspiracy theory that she was “hired by” and “partying” with Depp, which was previously debunked by Emmy-nominated Law & Crime correspondent Angenette Levy.
UPDATE: people are posting that court stenographer Judy from the #JohnnyDepp v. #AmberHeard trial was “partying” with JD. It’s NOT true. First, Judy is not a court employee. She was hired by the Depp and Heard teams. 2nd, she was not partying with him
The Depp v. Heard trial ended last week, and the seven-person jury, consisting of five men and two women, sided mostly with Depp, 58, in their verdict. They awarded him more than $10 million in damages, finding that Heard, 36, defamed him in her 2018 Washington Post op-ed about domestic abuse. Heard was awarded $2 million in her countersuit, and she plans to appeal the verdict.
Depp, who was not there in person to hear the verdict read aloud, said in a statement: “The jury gave me my life back.”
Heard said the verdict “sets back the clock to a time when a woman who spoke up and spoke out could be publicly shamed and humiliated.”