NBC's Saturday Night Live cops flak for domestic abuse joke in Johnny Depp sketch

NBC's world famous comedy show, Saturday Night Live (SNL), has received backlash for a sketch portraying the ongoing defamation case between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. Netizens were unhappy that SNL attempted to poke fun at domestic abuse. The recent episode opened with a sketch that focused on the accusation that Heard defecated on the bed in 2016 following a dispute. SNL's video showed the lawyer presenting new evidence in court about Depp's house staff discovering "faecal matter" and the scene then cuts to Depp's property manager stumbling on the "dookie". The property manager, played by actor Kenan Thompson, then looked around and said: "Damn, it smells like boo-boo in here!"

He also referenced the alleged incident in 2015 when Depp claimed his middle finger was partly severed after Heard hurled two bottles of vodka at him. "Remember [the wife] already cut the boy's finger off. And my Daddy always told me: "If the girl will cut your finger off, she will boo-boo in your bed," Thompson's character said.

His character was later joined by three other house staff who weighed in on the faecal matter on the bed and debated who could have left the mess. They also lament about how much they hate their jobs.

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The camera then cuts back to the witness stand where the comedian Kyle Mooney, who portrayed Depp, is asked if he found the case "amusing" and he laughed, saying: " A little, yes." The judge then pulls out a glass of wine and added: "So am I. You're bad, Captain Jack."

The judge then said that while she believes Depp's story, "[his] constant little smirk lets [her] know that this is not the first woman [he's] made so mad, she popoed in [his] bed". To which Mooney's character responds: "I guess I've been known to be a full nightmare."

Heard recently denied defecating in their shared bed, and according to Vanity Fair, Heard said she doesn't think that is funny and she does not know what grown woman does. "I was also not in a pranking mood," she said, adding that it's disgusting, Vanity Fair reported. Several netizens were unimpressed, calling SNL out for trivialising sexual assault and making fun of domestic violence. One netizen also stressed that this is a domestic abuse case that should not be joked about, no matter whose side they are on, while another called it the "strangest tone deaf skit".

SNL premiered in 1975 under the title NBC's Saturday Night.

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Depp and Heard are currently in the midst of a US$50 million lawsuit - which is receiving a fair amount of publicity - which Depp filed, following an opinion piece by Heard published in The Washington Post in 2019. According to multiple media reports including The Guardian, Heard said she had become "a public figure representing domestic abuse". While the piece had no mention of Depp's name, Heard reportedly said she had experienced "the full force of our culture's wrath for women who speak out".

Depp and his team said in the legal filing that Heard's claims are part of "an elaborate hoax to generate positive publicity for Heard and advance her career". They added that she is "not a victim of domestic abuse" but rather "a perpetrator". Heard then filed a US$100 million defamation countersuit in 2021. MARKETING-INTERACTIVE has reached out to SNL for comment.