Creator Commentary: Johnny and Amber - A Love Story (+ Update)
Added 2025-07-01 12:49:40 +0000 UTCAnother Creator Commentary to tie you over!
I manage to throw in my personal take as it wasn't worth a full addendum (that's given at 33 Mins), and I give further explanation as to why a part two on Fairfax is super, super, super unlikely at the end (1:24:55).
Some people have historically complained about the Patreon player when it comes to listening to these in the background like a podcast. It seems like it works fine on most phones via the Patreon app :)
UPDATE (Full Black Screen Update at 1:31:32):
Rejoice or despair, because Karen Read is next!
A lot of requests for this one, quite naturally, because it does fall into that "guilty or not guilty??" framework we all know and love. I had sort of known for well over a year I'd be doing it sooner or later, and now the criminal verdict is finalized, it looks like there's no reason to put it off longer...Aside from my mental and physical health, that is - boy oh boy what a jam-pack clusterf**k of a case. I just knew the very basic 101s before picking it up, and now I can really see why it's captured people's imagination.
It'll take ages, but I'm going to attempt to have the early premiere up within August. Too early to tell if that's really realistic so of course I'll touch base with another commentary at the end of the month to give you an update on how it's shaping up.
Thanks so much as always for your patience and support :)
Comments
Recently joined Patreon so probably shouldn’t be complaining BUT… I really enjoy these but the video playing in the background while you’re talking is so distracting to me. Just my 2 cents, love your work!
Sharon Straker
2025-10-08 07:49:15 +0000 UTCIt's so freaky: His private island, his private plane, his apartment, his security staff, his property manager. Seems like his employees are constantly around. And about the contents. In several instances, either an employee of Depp or Depp himself admitted to being violent. What more is there to say? There is obviously an immense power imbalance between the two. Oh and the misogyny that became all to visible again during the recent trial. Heard, the horrible harpy. For context, more than a thousand women in the US are killed every year by current or former partners. Let's not even talk about domestic abuse. Have we already forgotten Weinstein? All these people who are financially dependent on Depp. That is how powerful men get away with a lot in Hollywood. It certainly had a chilling effect on anybody thinking about coming forward.
Benj
2025-08-23 14:04:39 +0000 UTCThis is one of the videos I avoided watching for a long time because I can’t stand listening to so many people spew uneducated nonsense about “this person did abusive thing, therefore they’re the ONLY person at fault for the whole thing”. But I’m glad your video didn’t turn out to be one of those.
Ember Bennett
2025-07-23 20:20:47 +0000 UTCThat was excellent. Thank you.
PityTheHateful
2025-07-20 16:00:07 +0000 UTCI think the next video needs to be an analysis of poo
derek schommer
2025-07-16 13:15:05 +0000 UTCWell yes it's always nice to be on the side of the majority however Court of public opinion is not fact nor is it (thankfully) admissable in court. I used to be a huge fan of Johnny Depp but I really dont like him atall especially in the past ten years. He was great in the 90s and early 2000s and who doesnt love the early Pirates of the Caribbean 2003 Jack Sparrow? How ever... I dont like his friends and dark associates, his following of Aleister Crawley that just creeps me out. I saying that I.O is a complete creep because what random person shits in someone's bed? IO also looks insane just an observation.
Julz XD
2025-07-15 07:23:25 +0000 UTCSounds like it could be worth a look!
Matt Orchard
2025-07-11 02:21:12 +0000 UTCI don’t get the interest in Karen Read. Very boring case to me, but if anybody can get me interested, it’s Matt. If you are looking for a rarely discussed but very interesting case, look into Tracey Nix. She’s a Kentucky (?) grandma who babysat her grandson, and he got out and drowned. A tragedy, right? A year later, she was watching the same daughter’s infant, and left it in a hot car to die. On her own property. These are some religious people-the daughter kept talking about forgiveness and restoration, which is why she let mom babysit again. Tracey was a principal at a private school. Tracey only ever mentioned what would happen to her, she showed very little care for the kids she (I believe) murdered. She allowed this to go to trial, despite her confession. Her allocution after the guilty verdict was something else. There was a terrible psychologist on the defense side who was laughable in his narcissism but shed no insight. I really believe Tracey hated this daughter. I hope you get interested and look into it. There was media coverage and the trial was streamed but nobody has done a deep dive. I’m not sure it can be done with what’s out there but I have faith in you Matt. 💕
Ann Silberman
2025-07-09 22:25:39 +0000 UTCThere's a little discussion of his case in the Thomas Chan video. It's on Patreon if you scroll down :)
Matt Orchard
2025-07-09 09:08:04 +0000 UTCIf you need a video idea, I think Chris Benoit would be a fascinating case for you to cover. It gets into that gray area (literally, gray matter) of crime that you’re so good at examining in your docs (specifically, thinking back to the river stabbing vid)
Matthew B.
2025-07-09 06:10:41 +0000 UTCVery excited for Karen Read. As soon as I heard about the case I knew it would be a perfect vid for you.
Timothy Lane
2025-07-08 11:52:22 +0000 UTCI totally agree that this trial is a fucking drag. It brings out the worst in commenters, it’s always a mild bummer, and there’s just too much to wade through. All that said, your coverage of it is the only coverage I’ve ever found to be both bearable and re-watchable. It’s the most nuanced and balanced take, and it’s less than 5 hours. They were both abusive.
Mae
2025-07-08 11:29:13 +0000 UTCThat being said, I completely agree that both parties share basically equal blame and I have been screaming it from the rooftops the entire time haha I personally think that most of the claims from each side were probably more or less true. Their entire relationship was clearly toxic af (and I am near certain that Heard has Borderline Personality Disorder sorry not sorry) and resulted in physical and emotional abuse, manipulation, etc in both directions.
Laura Walmlsey
2025-07-08 06:38:10 +0000 UTCGreat insights Laura! It still stretches my intuition given the extent of the assault described, but I have to concede the truth can be counter-intuitive at times :)
Matt Orchard
2025-07-08 06:38:02 +0000 UTCJust wanted to say that, in regard to the makeup/bruising allegations, Cassie Ventura was left with a “black eye and a fat lip” after a physical assault by Sean Combs *that was confirmed by timestamped video* and went to a movie premiere 48 hours later; she reported using makeup specifically to cover her injuries. Additionally, as a trauma nurse for over a decade I can say with 100% certainty (albeit anecdotal) that bruising especially and in some cases swelling as well is always always always worse 2 to 3 days after the initial injury. So it is entirely possible that Heard was able to conceal her facial trauma with makeup, especially in the first 24 hours following the assault. The missing chunks of scalp… now that’s another story🤷🏻♀️
Laura Walmlsey
2025-07-08 06:33:14 +0000 UTCThanks so much Julie, really appreciate it!
Matt Orchard
2025-07-08 02:28:57 +0000 UTCHello from your newest supporter! I just joined a few minutes ago. Honestly, I’d pay to listen to you read your grocery list. Your voice is outstanding, your dry humor is a constant joy, and your content is so incredibly well done! Thank you for all you do!
Julie
2025-07-07 19:42:32 +0000 UTCGreat stuff, thoroughly enjoyed the original and the commentary! I have to tell you, since you’ve had small asides in the past about what the right word or turn of phrase is, that the word for after secondary is tertiary. (Insert a VHS distorted recording of “The More You Know” here)
Alex
2025-07-07 01:14:06 +0000 UTCThanks so much, Lanie! :)
Matt Orchard
2025-07-04 05:11:35 +0000 UTCI love your videos. I love your Patreon pitches. They're hilarious, so much so, that I decided to join! I really enjoy your ability to put a video together and it's always worth the wait. Listening to your insights, like with this video, is very interesting. I'm a fan!
Lanie Hall
2025-07-04 05:10:28 +0000 UTCIt also, I think, reasonably moves the scales. Like if you were 30 percent that he was capable of being violent toward her before seeing it, you should at least be 31 percent after.
Matt Orchard
2025-07-04 02:11:37 +0000 UTCSuper excited for the Karen Read video! I admittedly don't know much about that case, just the basics (woman ran her boyfriend/husband(?) over with a car, popular theory that his cop friends did it, etc.). So I'm looking forward to hearing your deep dive into it.
Mel T.
2025-07-03 22:29:09 +0000 UTCI agree with you about that video of Johnny in the kitchen. I absolutely perceive that to be physical abuse. He may not be hitting HER, but he is using physical violence (slamming and breaking cabinets, throwing glasses, kicking furniture) to intimidate and scare her. I know it's different in this particular context, since the trial really hinged on the whether or not Amber herself was being physically harmed. But in every other situation, this would be physically abusive behavior from a partner.
Mel T.
2025-07-03 22:25:54 +0000 UTCWhat I really enjoy is fuck the S*n, it has a terrible reputation in the UK as a newspaper. And fuck JKR and her fake feminism. That this awful relationship between two awful people got dragged into the public by an awful newspaper calling out an awful woman is quite funny. There are so many levels of shit to all of this. I think the saddest part is this didn't turn into a conversation about domestic abuse experienced by men, or about healthy relationships overall. (I am talking about society as a whole here not Matt's video).
TinTicket
2025-07-03 08:52:10 +0000 UTCI basically agree 100% with your take. I really appreciate your way at looking at nuance and giving a truly factual unbiased account, something that most people who claim that fail to do. I find the whole Depp did nothing wrong crowd pretty repulsive on the whole and somehow if you have a view like yours it's not good enough. It's denying reality. Black and white sports team view of serious legal issues I find so bizarre, especially involving celebrities. Depp clearly contributed to this mess of a relationship more than enough even if Heard did do more of it and is a more villainous figure. And hopefully we continue to not hear from either! I think it's a great factual presentation of the case but also I did find it unbearable to listen to them both. It's well made of course but one of your only videos I have never rewatched. Glad to know you feel the same!
futures
2025-07-03 02:15:39 +0000 UTCSome people were genuinely offended by a still image of poo? Did they not realise they were watching a video about two people enduring horrific emotional and physical turmoil, including crippling addiction and debilitating jealousy - and that’s what upset them? The poo? Some people, huh.
OvercookedOctopusFeet
2025-07-02 07:45:08 +0000 UTCIt baffles me that anyone could still believe Johnny was abusive. There’s no evidence he was and plenty of evidence that Amber is a pathological liar and serial abuser. Given the sexism noticeable in some of the comments (it’s never justifiable to put your hands on a woman’, really?) I can’t help but wonder if it’s because he’s a man and she’s a pretty blonde woman that people have such difficulty believing he was the victim and she was the abuser. One person in that relationship actually had injuries. And that was Johnny. One person in that relationship had a history of abusing their partners. That was Amber. One person in that relationship repeatedly lied and couldn’t produce any evidence of any abuse. That was Amber. It’s as simple as that.
Annabel Keeley
2025-07-02 07:40:49 +0000 UTCYeah and speaking to the "team sports" thing - as you allude to, Depp did get caught out obviously fibbing on the stand whenever he felt like he could get away with it, and it is frustrating to see how many people will just refuse to acknowledge as much while tearing all other witnesses (especially Heard) to shreds.
Matt Orchard
2025-07-02 05:47:28 +0000 UTCOkay, I'll try to include some clips next time!!!
Matt Orchard
2025-07-02 05:43:40 +0000 UTCI plan to, but just don't hold your breath because I'll need to take about a full videos worth of time to make what I have in mind even with the less demanding format and I just can't afford to right now. Maybe in a yearish. I have something several times the size of the JBR addendum in mind. The Prosecutors podcast are doing a series on it currently which I'd recommend jumping on in the meantime. I criticized their Ramsey take, but I think Brett and Alice do good work for the most part, and I think they're being especially thorough and impressive with their WM3 coverage so far.
Matt Orchard
2025-07-02 05:43:20 +0000 UTCThere is definitely an ongoing issue with pros vs cons of broadcasting these things. Obviously it's great for content creators like me, but I think we can all agree that probably shouldn't be front of mind for the justice system. I dunno how much JDs legal team would really have to orchestrate such things, there's plenty of natural incentives for content creators to cater to the lopsided demand that's created by him being 1000000x the bigger, more beloved star. It was certainly a very unfair dynamic, even if I'm not exactly a huge fan of Heard.
Matt Orchard
2025-07-02 05:39:13 +0000 UTCFunny choice to me, but I'm glad you liked it! I only went with that because it was the best, most recognizable movie I could find set in Oregon (Susan Monica connection).
Matt Orchard
2025-07-02 05:33:08 +0000 UTCWell, no help with picking up Karen Read then! I'm going to try to strategically choose at least a couple of less time sucking subjects after this. Quality over quantity will always be first and foremost, but I do want to look at ways to get regularity back to at least once per two months for the most part.
Matt Orchard
2025-07-02 05:31:06 +0000 UTCYeah all fair enough - I think you might be right now you mention it, there was contention around whether she might have made additions to the mirror scrawlings, like the Carly Simon thing. I dunno if that's an error in the video itself, or just the commentary. I'm foggy on the details now. I'm 90 plus percent he copped to the "Starring easy Amber and Billy Bob" thing though, right? That was the thing I felt was most significant because it lent credence to the notion of him being obsessive about her cheating on him with co-stars, which is relevant to that private plane incident where she's already coming out ahead in my reading of things. Though hey, in fairness, maybe she was cheating on him? lol. As another aside, that movie she was in with Billy-Bob (London Fields) is supposed to be hot trash and *extremely* heavy with the erotic scenes. Not that it's any excuse to hit her over, but if I was in his situation, and she was choosing roles like that, I think a big part of me would be like "why tf are you choosing roles like this??" Like really going out of your way to get super hot and heavy on screen with other dudes even if it's an obviously shitty movie and you're now a household name...It kind of seems almost taunting. I mean with hindsight maybe it would have been better to wait for Fairfax to do a break down because I'd have those colorful witnesses to make things more engaging. Que sara though, and there are still pros in using only the London trial because it lends itself to just sticking mostly with facts so viewers aren't too distracted by the additional spectacle.
Matt Orchard
2025-07-02 05:24:02 +0000 UTCYeah, it's funny how those sorts of snap backs work - I doubt we'll wind up in a world where there's a real consensus Heard was 100% blameless in all of it, and honestly I think her hardcore defenders have about as much inconvenient information to contend with as TeamJohnny. I mean good luck convincing me she was in anything like the state she claims she was when that nurse took a look at her.
Matt Orchard
2025-07-02 05:09:41 +0000 UTCI fall in on this case about where you do. Weirdly enough I've seen a lot of pivot the opposite direction lately with people calling Heard 100% innocent too. What a mess.. Looking forward to the Karen Read video!
Devon
2025-07-02 03:15:48 +0000 UTCMaybe it is one of the weaker of your modern videos, but it did serve its purpose. I didn't know anything about the trial, watched your video, and ended up bingewatching the trial (not specifically because of your video, but that did give me a frame of reference for the allegations). I ended up on the Depp side of things, but not to the point where I'd say there's a <50% chance of him ever hitting her. He's too unhinged and too drunk in the TMZ video and in some of the relevant stories. But Heard does certainly come off as opportunistic much of the time (not to mention violent--the lost finger is easily the biggest amount of damage inflicted upon either party). Partly that's from the 'bad vibes' you point to in this commentary, like the damning non-answers she gives on that phone recording when Depp asks if she's abused him physically. But also because Depp's lawyers to my mind successfully made most (not all) of the allegations questionable. So, yeah, it was a trainwreck. I think Depp's expert psychologist is correct in diagnosing Heard with Borderline Personality Disorder. For the mirror with the writing on it (14:14 in this Patreon video), Depp's lawyers questioned if Amber had written part of it in lipstick. Does that feel plausible to you? Looking at it, there appears to be two types of red substance: there's a darker, thinner red on the righthand side, but a bright thick red on the left. I'm not sure if Depp's lawyers were implying Amber did all of the red, or just the bright red. That does look more like lipstick than blood, and it's possible to say that there's a different voice coming from it: "Call Carly Simon - She Said It Better, Babe" [emoji?]. I totally understand that you won't likely do a Fairfax followup. But just for the fun of it I'd say that that trial could have a bit of a different angle--what a crazy, colorful cast of characters they found to give testimony. Specifically the quacks and guns-for-hire Heard's team found. It's quite a circus, while Depp's witnesses tend to be the very best money can buy (for understandable reasons, mind you).
Jonathan Gill
2025-07-02 02:39:24 +0000 UTCI would have shed a tear if you wasted a release cycle on amber v johnny part 2.
sampled tms
2025-07-02 00:18:35 +0000 UTCAll your videos are great. The. Only problem is the length of time between videos.
Patrick Green
2025-07-01 21:24:22 +0000 UTCDude my favorite patreon pitch you've done so far was the stand by me train ad. I watch the YouTube versions just to see the patreon pitch.
Gizmo
2025-07-01 20:29:36 +0000 UTCI think it's absolutely crazy that a domestic violence trial was televised and made into such a media circus. His PR was working OVERTIME to spin this well for him, and it did wonders. I personally believe a lot of the 'grass roots' support for Depp and the constantly clipped and highlighted moments of the trial were planted by his team. I personally have been hit by a woman in a relationship but you can NEVER justify laying your hands on a woman. Celebrities in general are so used to getting there bad behavior covered up and swept under the rug
mp3 __
2025-07-01 17:51:07 +0000 UTCHave you thought about doing a Ramey-style addendum on the West Memphis 3 case? I.e. your personal opinions on what happened, and not just the evidence?
Matthew Thayer
2025-07-01 17:32:21 +0000 UTCOh and we NEED a Wexler update!
Alan Holding
2025-07-01 15:17:18 +0000 UTCI agree with your overall take. I was vaguely aware of the trials and the whole situation at the time, then I saw the Channel 4 documentary (which ended up on Netflix a few months later) and cracks started to form in my perception (I can't remember all of it, but discovering the fact that "megapint" became a meme as if it was a novelty that JD had never heard before the Fairfax trial, even though it originated from the London trial… that and the whole disgusting team sports aspect of JD supporters). Medusone on YouTube has a great series of videos going over the whole thing, if you're into that sort of thing! So, now I'm looking forward to the Karen Read video!
Alan Holding
2025-07-01 15:15:16 +0000 UTCListening to this whilst packing for a flight to Sydney (weather permitting), great to hear your takes as always Matt!
Clare
2025-07-01 13:59:37 +0000 UTCAlrighty, here we go! Thanks Matt!
Alan Holding
2025-07-01 13:10:25 +0000 UTCYESSSS! Can't wait to hear your take on Karen Read.
Tara Daktyl
2025-07-01 12:59:41 +0000 UTCI followed the Read case live and clusterf*ck barely does it justice. Good luck with that one, sir, it'll be an exercise in containment. You'll deffo want to get it out ahead of the civil action! And thanks for this commentary - tonight's listening sorted.
Andy
2025-07-01 12:57:42 +0000 UTC
