Parasocial relationship to "Heartthrobs"
Something that is often discussed here is the, hard to deny fact, that a lot of Depp's support came from people who were already big fans since he was a massive star and sought out confirmation bias to support the position as opposed to seeing where the evidence led. And it was particularly strong for an actor like Depp who was a sex symbol for a very very long time and especially for a specific couple of generations.
Recently Olivia Wilde has been making the rounds to promote "The Invite" and has occasionally been touching on the drama surrounding her previous relationship with Harry Styles.
I don't know how many of you remember that time but she was very much villainized by a small but vocal number of people, tied in with some tabloid heresay surrounding the production of Don't Worry Darling.
She said in a recent interview: “I think that people were mad. It’s almost like the happiness made them mad. I would go to shows and dance, and people were like, ‘You slut! How dare you dance and smile?’ It really did upset people, though.”
It got me thinking about Depp/Heard.
I'm not trying to recycle a well-worn point, but more approach it from a different angle.
Harry Styles has very much been a heartthrob figure for a generation of people. (Much less of a problem than Depp of course). And a lot of people don't like seeing their celebrity crushes in relationships. It ruins the fantasy that if one day they could meet them, they could be with them as long as they were single.
I remember at the time of them dating, I was at a friend's watching a movie, a trailer for an Olivia Wilde movie came up and his teen daughter, a Harry Styles fan, said 'Oh we hate her.' Now this is just teen snark, I don't take it to mean much, but it's representative of a mindset, especially if an adult still has this type of immature thought.
Obviously a lot of people defended Depp blindly as fans, but I think Heard represented the woman who "took him away." Who stood in the way of their fantasy. It was already built into the case that she wasn't a real person, but an emotional obstacle.
So Depp's team didn't have to do THAT much to poison her character in the eyes of a large number of people. He was on easy mode for a number of reasons.
I remember well before the trial seeing occasional anti-Heard memes out of nowhere as the narrative was being built that "she had lied." and funnily enough pretty much nothing that was critical of him even before the ramp up to the case. Yes, people in general believed him to be abusive, but the atmosphere was primed so that if anyone could wedge something, even a little doubt, into the spokes, it would be welcomed.
TL;DR, the parasocial crush aspect on Depp isn't a new or uncommon phenomenon and unhealthy attachments to celebrity crushes can lead to villainizing their partners even just a little bit.
Edit: Just to add a little, I don't know a ton about the Don't Worry Darling stuff and what was or wasn't legit. I'm just using it as a jumping off point.