While it may seem like Johnny Depp’s star rose anew during his legal battle with Amber Heard, a new survey is suggesting that his popularity declined more than his passionate supporters would insist during the trial.
In the days before his defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife was decided, it was obvious to even casual observers that Depp had already secured a victory in the court of public opinion .
And not only did the hype around him extend to his lawyer Camille Vasquez, but it also seemed to reward fashion brand Dior for sticking by him while his reputation was in tatters.
Indeed, the social media buzz around the trial tilted so clearly in his favor that Heard’s lawyer is now suggesting its influence likely contributed to his legal victory .
But while Depp’s fans have certainly remained fiercely loyal and vocal throughout the trial, there may not be quite as many of them as his social media stats would suggest.
It’s not as if there was no social media support for Amber Heard, but it was deeply overshadowed by the number of people declaring their allegiance with Depp.
As Forbes reported, the #JusticeForJohnnyDepp hashtag amassed 20.4 billion views on Tiktok.
So while the 88.6 million views that TMZ reported for the #JusticeForAmberHeard counterpart would be impressive in a vacuum, it’s not hard to see that it made a comparatively small blip.
However, a poll from Morning Consult measuring his popularity between April and June of this year found that if anything, Depp could have lost fans since the trial began.
As their data shows, 68% of their sample of 2,200 U.S. adults had largely favorable opinions of Depp before the trial really kicked off back in April.
By the time the dust settled in June, however, that number decreased to 56% while the number of people with unfavorable opinions of him rose from 16% to 22%. Those who had either never heard of him or had no opinion of him showed the exact same trend as those who disliked him.
This effect was particularly pronounced among baby boomers, where opinions shifted from 59% approving of him in April to only 37% by June.
Accordingly, this generation also saw the biggest spike in unfavorable opinions as 22% disliked him in April and that percentage ballooned to 33% by the time the trial was over.
Interestingly, this drop in public opinion was more pronounced among men than women as 67% of the men surveyed liked him in April compared to 68% of the women. And by June, the men’s numbers fell to 52% while the women saw a less widespread shift in opinion at 59%.
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The number of men who went as far as to dislike him rose more dramatically as well. While 17% of the men polled and 14% of the women disliked him in April, those numbers changed to 26% and 19% respectively by June.
Yet while support from Generation X declined by about 10% from a baseline of 68%, it seemed that Depp was able to retain more of his younger fans by the time the trial was over.
While support from Millennials dropped just 6% from a baseline of 78%, Depp shed only 2% of those among the 72% of Generation Z members surveyed that found him favorable in April.
So while it was already easy to be overwhelmed by the groundswell of support Depp received on social media, it’s even more staggering to imagine how much louder that buzz would have been if it came from everyone who still liked him just two months earlier.
h/t: Morning Consult