Evan Rachel Wood Under Fire For Association With Amber Heard
Here we go again.
This article is more than 2 years old
The Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial may be over and done with, but the saga still manages to find a way to continue. The most recent continuation of the story involves Evan Rachel Wood and social media’s current backlash to her social media posts regarding Heard and the trial. Evan Rachel Wood took to Instagram to clarify some pictures that were taken of her and Heard, explaining that they don’t necessarily indicate she’s associated with the actress. Here’s a Tweet from noted Heard supporter and friend, Eve Barlow, talking about the situation:
Most people are taking umbrage with Evan Rachel Wood mentioning Harvey Weinstein when trying to give context about the picture. Of course, even if the abuse allegations against Heard are true, Harvey Weinstein has been charged with rape and various other counts of sexual abuse, so it’s not a favorable comparison. Of course, that’s not exactly what Wood said, as she was saying that just because people are in pictures with Weinstein, it doesn’t mean they’re a rapist and if she’s in a picture with Heard, it doesn’t mean she supports abusers.
Evan Rachel Wood posted these clarifications after people accused her of taking Heard’s side when she posted a report from the Bot Sentinel about the Heard-Depp trial. The Bot Sentinel is an unbiased source that looks at social media activity and manipulation. The report they released about the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp trial indicated that 627 Twitter accounts were dedicated to tweeting negatively about Heard and her supporters. It also found evidence of accounts spamming hashtags, negative accounts being created in the last seven months, and more notable instances of social media manipulation. It seems like Evan Rachel Wood was mostly trying to call attention to the fact that a lot of the negative activity on social media isn’t necessarily organic.
It’s understandable that Evan Rachel Wood might be concerned about this kind of social media manipulation with her own upcoming trial pending. Wood’s ex, musician Marilyn Manson, is taking her to court and suing for defamation. Evan Rachel Wood accused Manson of sexually abusing her and grooming her as a teenager. In the wake of Wood’s accusations, numerous women have come forward with abuse allegations of their own against Manson, with several of them filing lawsuits. Evan Rachel Wood released a documentary earlier this year called Phoenix Rising, that centered on her efforts to pass the Phoenix Act in California, which extends the statute of limitations for sexual assault victims. In the documentary, she and other women further detail their experiences with Manson.
The Evan Rachel Wood and Manson trial and the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp trial are both defamation cases involving high-profile celebrities, but the similarities pretty much end there. Manson has multiple allegations against him from multiple women, and it seems like Evan Rachel Wood has concrete information backing up her accusations. In any case, it seems like Wood will be taking a break from the social media discourse. As reported by Newsweek, she ended her thoughts on the Depp and Heard trial by saying “No matter what I say it WILL be taken out of context. And since social media has proven time and again NOT to be the place to have nuanced conversations, and the media wants clickbait, especially when you speak out against abuse, I will reinstate my original comment about my stance on the matter, which was ‘no comment.'”
