The Amber Heard-Johnny Depp trial was an orgy of misogyny | Moira Donegan

The backlash to #Me Too has long been under way. Now it's here

In text messages to friends, Johnny Depp fantasized about murdering his then-wife, the actress Amber Heard. I will fuck her burnt corpse afterwards to make sure she's dead," Depp wrote. In other texts, he disparaged his wife's body in luridly misogynist terms. Mushy pointless dangling overused floppy fish market," he called her.

The texts became public as part of Depp's defamation suit against Heard, now at trial in a Virginia court. Ostensibly, Depp is suing over a 2018 article that Heard published in the Washington Post, titled I spoke up against sexual violence - and faced our culture's wrath." In the piece, the actress writes, Two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse." The article does not mention Depp, but his lawyers say that the piece was about him - and was defamatory. For those 11 words, Depp is seeking $50m.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist