Johnny Depp Trial Reveals Sordid Culture of Celebrity Enablers

variety.com:

Johnny Depp began last week in a courtroom in northern Virginia, pulling back the curtain on the secretive world of celebrity enablers and hangers-on.Depp is suing his ex-wife, Amber Heard, for $50 million for describing herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse” in a 2018 Washington Post opinion piece.

That revived allegations she made when the couple divorced in 2016 — about which they had each promised to remain silent — and in Depp’s view the public characterization could not go unchallenged.But after Depp lost a similar case in London in 2020, his public reputation — and career — are in tatters.

He has not appeared in a major studio film since “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” in 2018, although he has starred in smaller indies such as “Minamata.” Relitigating these issues, which entails resurfacing text messages in which he called Heard a “c—” and fantasized about her “rotting corpse,” are unlikely to turn things around. “Maybe a part of him feels like, ‘What do I have to lose?

I’m going down. I’m bringing her down with me,’” says Hollywood divorce lawyer Judy Poller.Reports of Depp’s erratic behavior on set, extravagant spending and drug abuse were not in conflict with the rakish persona that helped him earn $650 million over three decades in the film business with hits like “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Alice in Wonderland.” But Heard’s assault claims — once validated by a U.K.