Over the past few weeks, we have witnessed extraordinary scenes unfold in courts on both sides of the Atlantic.

In the High Court in London, footballers’ wives Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy have been locked in a battle royale over reputation and privacy involving an Instagram account, a mobile phone that ended up in a watery grave in the North Sea and a round of “she said, she said” that has either left onlookers tickled pink or despairing.

The ‘Wagatha Christie’ ding-dong has given gawping onlookers an insight into the sharp practices of the English tabloid press and the lengths some people will go to try to keep their personal brand intact and lucrative.

Meanwhile, over in America, the true home of the celebrity legal wrangle, a far more serious case has come to an end in Virginia’s Fairfax County Courthouse.

58-year-old actor Johnny Depp’s defamation suit against his former wife Amber Heard, 36, centred on an op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post in December 2018 in which she described herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse”.

Texas-born Heard, who had a starring role in Aquaman, did not name Depp in the piece, but he sued her for implying he was a domestic abuser and sought $50 million in damages.

Heard countersued for $100 million, claiming that she suffered “rampant physical violence and abuse” at his hands.

Vardy versus Rooney and Depp versus Heard are both very different cases but both have provided the public with some truly eye-popping and jaw-dropping insights into the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

What would normally be celebrity rumour has turned into heavyweight legal evidence in courtroom exchanges in both cases.

Over the past six weeks or so we have heard claims and counterclaims that have both delighted and appalled courtroom rubberneckers.

Many will have scoffed at it all – especially as these cases unfolded against the backdrop of a war in Europe and a serious economic downturn.

However, these two celebrity feuds have revealed a lot about modern media. They’ve both been an intersection of old media, social media and celebrity that have had many people agog, the legal profession’s coffers zinging, and newspapers and TV news goggle-eyed with delight.

Both have also generated a flurry of memes and twitter gags. Grist for the mill in the Vardy/Rooney case perhaps, but despite the seriousness of Heard’s allegations of abuse against Depp and his counter claims that it was she who was abusive during their two-year marriage, Heard seemed to have been prejudged in the court of social media long before the jury had its say.

Depp’s extremely loyal fanbase were busy vilifying Heard online and she was the target of a vast #JusticeForJohnnyDepp social media campaign.

A petition to have the actress dropped from Aquaman 2 was reported to have reached over four million signatures. Most chilling of all, she claimed that she had been subject to “hundreds of death threats every day”.

Depp and Heard also presented vastly different faces to both the jury in Virginia and the viewing public at home.

She could often be seen sobbing as she gave her testimony, while Depp was seen variously sucking on sweets, smirking and refusing to look as his ex-wife poured her heart out mere feet away.

Speaking to CNN recently, one Hollywood source said of Depp’s decision to pursue the case: “I wasn’t sure what to expect before he took the stand and if anything, I believe this has done nothing but help his public image.”

However, another movie publicist told CNN: “Both are highly dysfunctional. Money is toxic and greed destroys. No one wins here.”

And that’s the question many have been asking – who are the real winners when celebrities take each to court?

One answer is the lawyers, who are commanding huge fees for defending their clients, and, of course, the media, who can’t believe their luck that they have not one but two high-profile celebrity court cases happening at once.

“At the end of the day with the Wagatha Christie trial you’re litigating two opposing viewpoints and the ultimate winner is the winner of that litigation,” says Dublin-based barrister Peter Shanley.

“If they have the resources and are satisfied they can win, the case is worth pursuing.”

When it comes to the legal eagles who brandish words like weapons, they have done their profiles no harm.

The “bronzed” (as the Daily Mail likes to describe him) David Sherborne, who is representing Coleen Rooney, looks like he’s stepped off the set of eighties super-soap Dynasty and he’s already passed into minor legal history for unintentionally wrong footing Vardy with his assertion that her mobile phone is now “in Davy Jones’s locker” and her askance reply, “I don’t know him”.

Meanwhile, Depp’s lawyer, Camille Vasquez, has become somewhat of a celebrity in her own right, with gossip columns speculating about her love life and style magazines praising her fashion choices.

All parties in both cases clearly believe they’ve been wronged and have reputations to defend – despite the onslaught of public ridicule they’re risking.

“That’s always the risk in litigation. When you put yourself forward to give evidence, you’re not going to have it all your own way,” says Peter Shanley.

“You’ll be in the dock, and you will be cross examined and quite often you won’t come out well from that process and that’s certainly the case with these two cases.”

“They have and that is always the job of the respective lawyers in cross examining is to do that very thing and to some extent they have achieved that goal.”

He adds: “How many of these celebrity rows have gone the distance and ended up in court? You can do yourself so much damage that some people settle in advance.”

The reason for the rabid public fascination is pretty obvious. “These are well-known celebrities dealing in public with disputes that everyone can relate to,” says Shanley.

“Everyone has had those rows and you’re seeing them play out in a courtroom to millions of viewers and readers.”