The Modern Day Witch Hunt of Amber Heard

How we should be careful of the stories created in courts against women — which I learned firsthand.

Nikola Grace Radley
4 min readJun 1, 2022
Amber Heard in court. Photo credit: Reuters

The toxic relationship between Johnny Depp and Amber heard is being shoved down our throats right now like ducks at a foie gras ‘farm’. It is not only in trashy tabloids and strewn across social media but it’s taking keyspace over school shootings and a potential world war in respected news outlets like the New York Times and The Guardian (UK). The courtroom even has live streaming, and people are absorbing the events unfold like voyeurs of a car crash sitting eating popcorn.

And why?

Because we as a society haven’t much moved on from 17th-century witch hunts. Because even now, in 2022, people adore seeing an attractive young woman who dared to give herself a voice be humiliated and tested in public. When she can’t do right for doing wrong. Where any answer she gives to wild accusations thrown at her is rebuked. The equivalent of:

If she floats, she’s a witch and thus be burned at the stake, and if she drowns, she isn’t, but you know well she’s dead…

Winner, winner, chicken dinner

As spectators treat the lawyers of Johnny Depp and his team as some kind of crusaders of justice, we are…

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Nikola Grace Radley
Nikola Grace Radley

Written by Nikola Grace Radley

Freelance writer. You can find me reading under a palm tree in Rio de Janeiro. E-mail: nikola.grace.radley@gmail.com

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