Gutfeld: This is Depp's best performance
'Gutfeld!' panelists weigh in on Johnny Depp's testimony in his libel case against ex-wife Amber Heard.
Have you seen the Johnny Depp defamation trial? He's suing his ex-wife, Amber Heard, for calling him a wife beater. Allegedly. You want some lowlights? Here are some lowlights.
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JOHNNY DEPP: After the wedding, there was a dinner, dancing and drugs.
OFF-SCREEN SPEAKER: You can't say that you carried cocaine in that box?
JOHNNY DEPP: No, but it looks like it would fit some cocaine.
OFF-SCREEN SPEAKER: You would sometimes drink whiskey in the mornings too, right, during this time period?
JOHNNY DEPP: You know, I mean, isn't happy hour any time?
…
I don't believe that I'm the only human being that’s ever punched a door or broken something.
…
On my side of the bed was human fecal matter.
Talk about airing dirty laundry. So yeah, it's sad. Kind of gross, kind of riveting, but it's also kind of inspiring. So bear with me on this.
Johnny Depp and Amber Heard in a Fairfax, Va., courtroom. (Shawn Thew via AP and Evelyn Hockstein via REUTERS/ pool)
First, we all grew up watching Depp. So naturally, we're going to be curious to what's going on. It's not like we care what Peter DeLuise is up to. Remember him? And there are some ugly things in this case. There's video of Depp smashing furniture, Depp punching a wall. Lots of drinking and drug use. A finger getting sliced, passing out, swearing, screaming, bottle throwing, hitting. What Dana Perino would call a quiet night at home.
Generally, I stay away from this stuff because it's weird to turn people's suffering into entertainment. If I want that, I can read Kat's diary, that is, when Kilmeade returns it to me. He told me it's a combination of Judy Blume and Clive Barker. But I feel dirty when I explore other people's pain and also other people's poop.
True, this might be the first time we've ever seen on TV people talking about other people crapping in their bed on purpose. Depp calls the act a grumpy – someone should alert Snow White of this immediately.
JOHNNY DEPP: She was on the phone, and they were making a wonderful point of just how funny it was that I thought that some human being had actually dropped a grumpy – wrong term? – onto the bed. And they were, yeah, they were yukking it up, they were laughing about the whole thing, and I really didn't feel like I deserved that.
Well, I guess she wanted to show him what Gilbert Grape has been eating.
Of course, everyone has dirty laundry in an ugly divorce. In this case, the dirty laundry here was in fact really dirty laundry and the whole world shared her trip to 21 Dump Street.
Johnny Depp confers with his attorney during his libel trial against ex-wife Amber Heard. (Shawn Thew/Pool Photo via AP)
But there were other times when you could really sympathize with Depp, for example, like, why did he give drugs to Marilyn Manson?
OFF-SCREEN SPEAKER: One of your good friends that you've taken drugs with before is Marilyn Manson, right?
JOHNNY DEPP: We've had cocaine together, maybe a couple of times.
OFF-SCREEN SPEAKER: OK. Pills, right? With Marilyn Manson.
JOHNNY DEPP: I once gave Marilyn Manson a pill so that he would stop talking so much.
I know what Judge Jeanine is getting for Christmas.
But there's a bigger story here beyond this seedy salaciousness. The fact is, Depp is humiliating himself for a good reason. He's baring the most pathetic, saddest part of his life because he feels it must be done. He's got to empty himself out and not the way Amber did on the bedspread.
It's like chemo. He realizes the treatment is hellacious, but it's the only way to beat the cancer. So he's bearing his horrible existence, warts and all, to billions of strangers. How can he do that? Well, somehow he's immunized himself against the effects of embarrassment. And that's a superpower. There's nothing you can do to him that he hasn't done to himself. It's like Superman hoarding kryptonite before you can use it against him.
When I watched him, I found myself somewhat liberated for a few reasons. One is obvious, that unlimited wealth, fame and good looks doesn't make you immune to suffering. So I got something to look forward to. But also embarrassment hits all of us, from the shopkeeper to the shoplifter, from the moving van driver to the movie star. And that should bring comfort to your life – that we're all equal under the harsh cruelty of our own fallible nature. Give us any embarrassment of riches, and we could turn it into an embarrassment of embarrassments.
But what makes you immune to suffering is your ability to cease judging other people, even as they judge you. That's why this testimony helps all of us. Once you realize that even big stars are susceptible to life's humiliations, then you realize that life is hard for everyone. You might be luckier than him. You might not be. Maybe you screw up. Maybe you make a fool out of yourself. But the only person who really judges you is you.
Actor Johnny Depp speaks with his attorney Ben Chew as he attends his defamation trial against his ex-wife Amber Heard at the Fairfax County Circuit Courthouse in Fairfax, Virginia, on April 13, 2022. - Heard is being sued for defamation by her former husband, US actor Johnny Depp, after she wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post in 2018 that, without naming Depp, accused him of domestic abuse. (Photo by EVELYN HOCKSTEIN / POOL / AFP) (Photo by EVELYN HOCKSTEIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) (EVELYN HOCKSTEIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Fact is, people overestimate how much others notice their mistakes. Now, it doesn't feel that way when it's your mistake. But people are generally too consumed by their own problems to dwell on yours.
So when I watch Depp, I see a human sacrifice, an act of liberation for all of us, whether he knows it or not. He's embarrassing himself for all our sins. Fact is, I'm a weirdo, and I don't care if anyone judges me for that, since I won't judge them in return. That's freedom, because we're all hopeless sinners and fools and humans. Depp is doing the best performance of his career performing a sacrificial act for us. He's saying, I'm not just like you. I might be worse, and no yachts or mansions can save me. He's accepting the Oscar for being a flawed human being, then slapping himself in the face.
The result – you see that we are in this thing together, and nothing drives that point home better than someone else taking a dump in your bed. The only difference is Johnny's sheets have a higher thread count.
This article was adapted from Greg Gutfeld's opening monologue on the April 22, 2022 edition of "Gutfeld!"