After the judge denied her attorneys to dismiss the case, Amber Heard began to testify in
Johnny Depp's defamation lawsuit.
And I'm sure she knew that her body languag e was going to expose her, as you're about
to find out.
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my name is Jesús Enrique Rosas, I'm the Body Language Guy, and it would be great if you
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Perhaps the most important section is her recollection of the first time he allegedly
hit her.
Now, watch this clip and pay attention to her facial expressions:
- And there would be a blow up.
And...
at first it was just throwing something, smashing things, uhm... he loves to smash the place,
the apartment.
Glass...
The first emotion is anger.
She's trying to convey that she's upset of recalling these initial aggressions from Johnny,
and that's how we get those pressed lips... suspiciously looking straight into the camera,
and quite a lot of tension in her jaw and her mouth.
Now, I found relevant that she's describing Johnny being violent, but she uses very general
terms.
"Throwing something, smashing things, furniture, glass".
There are no specifics, and she uses filler sounds, such as "uhm", which is a bit odd.
You remember that when Johnny explained the incident with the bottle, he took all the
time he needed to describe, in detail, how it had happened?
Well, watch Amber's description of other 'situations':
- Throw glass, or turn over a table, then he will hit the wall, and hit the wall really
close to my head, you know?
when I'm standing there.
Hit the wall, screaming at me.
Uhm... but...
"throw glass, turn over a table, hit the wall close to my head".
It's hard to picture these events, because she is too vague.
Try to remember a stressful situation of yours and you'll be surprised of how many details
are still imprinted in your mind.
And she's constantly looking to her right, where the jury is, raising her eyebrows to
try to establish rapport and empathy with them.
By the way, notice how Johnny makes sure to NOT establish eye contact with her.
It's a way of saying, "I'm ignoring you".
Some have mentioned how Amber is talking and it looks like she suddenly remembers that
she's displaying the wrong emotion.
Like in my previous video that I mentioned THAT obvious mask slip from delight to sadness.
But it's much more obvious on her testimony, as you can see in the next clip:
- And then he would go back to this like... wonderful, almost like... just unreal, like...
you know, real.
Nice, sensitive, kind, warm, sensitive...
That look she gave in Johnny's direction, is pure anger.
And well, if someone is looking at her alleged abuser, that emotion would made sense.
But then, why the SUDDEN change when she turns around to address the Jury again?
She's almost delighted.
And she also tries to convey sadness, but her inner eyebrows fail to full contract for
this emotion, so she's forcing it.
You noticed that Amber was mentioning Johnny's "original" state.
Nice, kind, sensitive, the man she fell in love with.
And you might be curious about why she spent hours speaking wonders of him.
This is a strategy that her attorneys must have set up.
Because just listening to a couple clips, makes you wonder, why does an independent
woman stay in a relationship with a man that was, according to herself, unstable?
If he was throwing things around, hitting the wall, why didn't she just leave before
things escalated?
And that's why she needs to convince the jury that she did not leave, despite all these
red flags, because she was madly in love, and she thought that she could save him.
In fact, at one point, her lawyer expressly uses the words Evolve, and Pattern of Escalation,
to make it seem like these aggressions grew so slowly over time that she decided to stay.
So, this is just a tactic to manipulate the jury's perception.
Now, this is the precise moment she was recalling the supposed first aggression.
Pay attention to her words:
Again, she needed to make it seem like this aggression was 'no big deal' and so, it would
make sense for her to stay with her alleged abuser.
But what about her facial expressions talking about the actual event?
- No!
I didn't want to leave him, I didn't want this to be the reality, I didn't want to...
(...) the man I was in love with...
I know you don't come back from that, you don't...
I know you can't hit a woman
This is apparently the most poignant moment of her recollections, and even so, if you
focus on her eyebrows you'll notice that there's something off.
That her emotion somehow lacks intensity and you have a hard time connecting to her pain.
So, either she's faking it, or... we really don't know how she managed to get a job in
Hollywood.
There was also this moment when Amber was referring to Johnny's jar of... uhm... baby
powder.
The one he supposedly used to apply to his nose every morning.
Notice that Amber displays rapid blinking.
She blinks TEN times over just three seconds.
Now, rapid blinking has a number of meanings, especially stress.
And maybe Amber was stressed at that moment, out of fear of being exposed.
But I find it odd that she was recalling an event that she must have talked with her attorneys
more than a couple times, and at that precise moment she hadn't mentioned the aggression
itself, so there were few reasons to be truly stressed here.
I'm gonna give her a pass, but it looks like a gesture that she did on purpose to gain
credibility.
And by the way, judging by the way Johnny smiles when she mentions the Jar of... uhm,
baby powder, well...
it must have been THE jar of baby powder.
There is a very small body language contradiction in the following clip.
Let's see if you can spot it:
- And he slaps me one more time.
Hard.
- And he slaps me one more time.
Hard.
- And he slaps me one more time.
Hard.
Yeah, she just denied with her head when making those claims.
Now, the movement of denying with one's head can also be used to emphasize a statement,
like when you say that something is 'delicious'.
In that case, it's fairly common to see that people move their heads back and forth to
add intensity to the word.
But in Amber's case, the moment that she's denying with her head, she's silent.
There are no words to emphasize.
So, this signal is a body language contradiction to whatever she's saying.
If that ever happened.
Now, here comes the part when Amber really tries to draw tears.
Let's see if she's successful:
- And I wish I could say that I stood up and I walked out of that house, and I drew a line,
and I stood up for myself,
Every person has different emotional reactions depending on the circumstances, and we cannot
say that because a person doesn't shed tears, then they are not truly feeling at that moment.
And that is a myth.
Because someone could be feeling a very strong emotion and make sure to not display the slightest
signal.
But if you're controlling your emotions, it would not be just your tears.
It's never that specific.
It would be your whole emotional display.
But Amber is so histrionic in her behavior, that it becomes a contradiction with that
supposed control.
It's hard to believe that she was letting her head be emotionally expressive, but at
the same time not shed a tear.
I would love to know what you think about this.
There's one more clip that I'll be addressing today, and it's this one:
- And he's crying.
Tears, I mean, falling out of his eyes, he gets down on his knees, and he grabs my hands
and he's, touching my hands and he's saying I would never do that again, I'm so sorry
babe
I want to make a point about how important it is for Amber to make it seem that there
was some kind of logic behind she staying with Johnny after those alleged attacks.
And it becomes a paradox for her own lawyers, because the more they try to portray Johnny
as a volatile, violent man, the less sense it makes for her to have stayed, when the
first red flags began.
Unless...
Johnny is not a violent man, they are crafting this story, and they need to justify, by any
means necessary, the reason why Amber stayed.
It's a tough job, but I guess someone has to do it.
This analysis was from just 6 minutes of footage out of hours that Amber testified on her first
day.
So, you can help me spot more important clips to analyze, following and tagging me on my
Twitter or Instagram accounts.
If you want to refine your observation skills, all you have to do is download my 100+ body
language tips, right in the description of this video.
My name is Jesús Enrique Rosas and it will always be a pleasure, my body language buddies!
Much Love, and Bliss.