One of the most talked about court trials is finding a lot of attention on Instagram. We are talking about the legal battle between actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, which has left fans divided. Depp’s official Instagram account, which quickly picked up one million followers soon after his joining in April 2020, now has 17.1m followers. When the legal battle began in 2020, he had around 5.8m followers and by April 2021, 10 million followers. In comparison, Heard’s Instagram following hasn’t grown as much as Depp’s and now stands at 4.5m.
Though Depp’s Instagram following is on the rise, he rarely posts. The last time he used the service was in February: “In 2019, just before the pandemic struck, we made a film about giving a voice to those that have none. Such a theme feels more important today than ever. With all love and respect to the strong, beautiful and brave people of Minamata,” he wrote.
As the legal battle continues, it has spawned a lot of videos on social media platforms with hashtags like #justiceforjohnnydepp and #mentoo. Depp and Heard had met on the sets of The Rum Diary in 2009 and in 2015 they got married only to divorce a year later. Depp has sued Heard for defamation after she wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post referring to herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse”.