Johnny Depp’s Ex-UTA Agent Reveals Actor’s Cash-Strapped Woes At $50 Million Defamation Trial

deadline.com:

The jury in the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard defamation trial on Thursday saw the actor’s former agent and former business manager describe the collapse of his reputation and his finances by the time they were let go in 2016.UTA’s Tracey Jacobs, who had represented Depp since the 1990s, laid out how the star came to the agency early in 2016 demanding $20 million.In pre-recorded video testimony that was played for the jury, Heard’s attorney asked Jacobs, “So Mr.

Depp came in and said, ‘I want you to get $20 million for me?'”“Actually it was, ‘I want you to give me 20 million,'” Jacobs said. “The question was not asked as a loan.”Jacobs said that UTA partners Jim Berkus and Jeremy Zimmer, who were present at the meeting, told Depp that “we are not in a position to give our clients that kind of money.

We are not a bank.”But Depp thought that the agency should just give him the money, Jacobs said, given the length of time that they represented him.Later, Depp’s former business manager, Joel Mandel, described Depp’s personal fortune exploding in the early 2000s, but that the situation began to change around 2010.

Mandel said that Depp’s spending “had grown very large,” and that when his income dropped off, Depp’s expenses became “untenable.”Mandel said that he had “constant” conversations with Depp about curbing spending, but that it “never seemed to happen.”By 2015, Mandel, the situation had gotten so alarming that Depp was unable to pay his taxes.