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No, Amber Heard did not borrow lines from The Talented Mr Ripley during Johnny Depp testimony

Rumour was circulated on social media that Heard’s beginning statement borrowed from the plot of the 1999 psychological thriller

Peony Hirwani
Wednesday 11 May 2022 08:16 BST
Amber Heard testifies Johnny Depp penetrated her with a bottle

A claim that Amber Heard lifted from the plot ofThe Talented Mr Ripley for her testimony at the Johnny Depp defamation trial has been debunked.

After the Aquaman actor delivered her second day of testimony at the ongoing trial on Thursday (5 May), she was accused of taking lines verbatim from director Anthony Minghella’s critically acclaimed film.

One popular social media claim alleged that Heard’s beginning statement borrowed the plot of the 1999 psychological thriller, which stars Jude Law, Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow and Cate Blanchett.

A number of social media users shared screenshots purporting to compare Heard’s testimony with lines from the film’s script. They claimed that Heard’s statement was almost word-for-word with dialogue uttered by Gwyneth Paltrow’s character Marge Duval about Dickie (Law) in the movie.

According to those unverified social media posts, Heard had said: “When I was around Johnny I felt like the most beautiful person in the world.

“You know, made me feel seen, made me feel… like a million dollars. It felt like a dream. It felt like, um, absolute magic and then he would disappear. And there would be just no way to get ahold of him, no way to contact him.”

However, soon after the rumours started surfacing online, fact-checking website Snopes.com promptly debunked the rumour.

The online publication revealed that Heard couldn’t have used the quotes from the film (which are genuine), as she “didn’t make an opening statement” at all.

In fact, her attorney delivered an opening statement on her behalf prior to her giving testimony.

“The claim that Heard repeated these lines from The Talented Mr Ripley was presented on social media with no evidence,” the fact-check report read.

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“Those asserting it did not share a video of Heard making the alleged statement, nor did they link to any news articles containing this quote or a transcript from the trial that would substantiate the accusation.”

The publication noted that it was suspicious that the social media posts making the allegations did not share any video footage of Heard saying these words, given the trial is being livestreamed.

You can follow the live updates of the Depp-Heard trial here.

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