Angelina Jolie is the recent celebrity to experience online hatred in the form of comparisons to actor Amber Heard after a legal filing revealed new details of the abuse allegations made by Angelina Jolie against her ex-husband Brad Pitt.
As seen from the hundreds of comments, Social Media users are comparing Jolie and Heard. Heard’s court trial with her ex-husband, actor Johnny Depp, spawned a separate wave of social media content that included a heat wave against Amber, calling out cancel her from Hollywood.
When Heard was found guilty of defaming Depp in a Virginia jury trial after declaring herself the victim of domestic violence in 2018 op-ed published in The Washington Post, Heard was ordered to pay $10.3 Million. Depp was also found guilty of defaming Heard and awarded a $2 million damage.
According to a domestic violence researcher and an instructor in unconscious prejudice, the allegations against Jolie are part of a pattern of sexist stereotypes leveled at high-profile female accusers.
The attacks on Jolie happened after she filed a countersuit against Pitt, claiming that he had abused her and their children physically and emotionally. In the countercomplaint, Jolie described a violent 2016 ride on a private plane, during which she said, “Pitt choked one of the children and struck another in the face.” Days after the trip, she claimed the incident prompted her to file for divorce.
In February, Pitt initiated the current legal lawsuit in response to Jolie selling her share of their French winery. However, the charges of abuse made by Jolie in her countercomplaint have gained prominence online, where a long-running cultural war has been fought between proponents and opponents of the #MeToo movement.
