The Hollywood Reporter Describes Johnny Depp As “Radioactive”
To be fair, I’m sure the safest way to approach Johnny Depp directly is in a hazmat suit.
The Hollywood Reporter has published a cover story they’re calling The Implosion, which sounds like what could happen if Johnny Depp stood too close to a pilot light (grease is very flammable). As if that cover wasn’t the deadest of giveaways, the story is not exactly flattering. So THR likely just earned a spot on Johnny Depp’s List of Print Publications That Can Go Fuck Themselves.
THR accuses Johnny of repeatedly pressing his own self destruct button, saying his career was “wrecked” from his unquenchable thirst for revenge. Eric Schiffer, a crisis PR specialist, spoke to THR about Johnny’s current situation, and Eric says that the only people left on Johnny’s side at this point are his fans:
“He has suffered immense reputational carnage from a reckless set of choices that has left him in septic muck. Can he come out of that? It really comes down to Johnny’s choices. He still has a fan base that in many ways is like Donald Trump’s with their emotional intensity and commitment to a star icon. It’s not based around principles. It’s about charisma and their identification of the range of characters that he’s played.”
Eric and THR are referring to Johnny’s shitty 2020, which was self-made. Johnny sued The Sun for calling him a “wife beater” when reporting on Amber Heard’s claims of domestic abuse against him. Johnny was suing for libel, arguing that The Sun fucked with his reputation and subsequent career opportunities by saying that he beat his wife. It went to trial, and the trial was a mess of bed-pooping accusations and testimony from Amber that included her claiming Johnny threatened multiple times that he’d kill her. Johnny’s side claimed Amber was lying, and that she was also abusive to him. In November, Johnny lost his libel suit, with a judge ruling there was enough evidence of abuse for The Sun to use the term “wife beater.” Not long after, Warner Bros. announced that Johnny was leaving the Fantastic Beasts film series. We later learned his character, Grindelwald, would be played by Mads Mikkelsen in the third film.
THR writes that Johnny had an opportunity to pull what was left of his career out of the toilet, thanks to Poland’s EnergaCamerimage film festival. They were giving him a career honor, and he was scheduled to appear virtually on November 21 from the US. But Johnny managed to take the easiest PR opportunity of 2020 and make it Johnny Depp-style weird and uncomfortable.
As an added seal of approval at a needed moment, the festival scheduled his latest film, the low-budget period drama Minamata, as its closing-night offering. But after a montage of clips showcasing Depp’s “unique visual sensitivity,” the 57-year-old actor failed to materialize onscreen. Instead, he sent along a bizarre picture of himself – open-shirted and with platinum blond hair peeking out from under a pair of colorful scarves. Inexplicably, he appeared to be standing behind bars in a Caribbean prison – resembling a carefree swashbuckler serving time for a crime that he doesn’t quite take seriously. Minamata, featuring Depp as real-life war photographer W. Eugene Smith, never screened. MGM, the film’s distributor, pulled it during the seven-day festival.
And then there’s Johnny’s money problems, which also contributed to his recent downfall. Johnny claims that he lost hundreds of millions after his former money management, The Management Group, mismanaged his money. Weeeeeell…that’s not the whole truth, according to THR:
The claims made in at least six recent suits, along with multiple interviews conducted by THR, paint a picture of an out-of-control Depp, a casualty of Hollywood’s sycophant culture in which his wild spending and substance abuse were rarely challenged. Or as one producer who worked on a recent Depp project notes, “He’s just never been told no for the past 35 years. That’s typical in Hollywood. But I’ve never seen it to this extent.”
THR has numerous texts and messages that were allegedly sent by Johnny to various Hollywood types about Amber. All of them are capital-M messy, like the one he sent to his sister Christi Dembrowsk, a producer, telling her that he wanted Amber fired from Aquaman. They also published a text sent from Johnny to CAA talent manager Christian Carino, who you may remember as Lady Gaga’s ex. Christian used to represent Amber Heard. I know it’s a big cliché to joke about Hollywood agents getting paid too much, but really – Christian deserved his full fee and more for having to read text messages this messy. Especially from someone who isn’t even a client!
Among the lowlights is a text from Depp to CAA agent Christian Carino: “[Heard is] begging for total global humiliation. She’s gonna get it. I’m gonna need your texts about San Francisco brother…I’m even sorry to ask…But she sucked [Elon Musk’s] crooked dick and he gave her some shitty lawyers…I have no mercy, no fear and not an ounce of emotion or what I once thought was love for this gold digging, low level, dime a dozen, mushy, pointless dangling overused flappy fish market…I’m so fucking happy she wants to fight this out!!! She will hit the wall hard!!! And I cannot wait to have this waste of a cum guzzler out of my life!!! I met fucking sublime little Russian here…Which makes me realize the time I blew on that 50 cent stripper…I wouldn’t touch her with a goddam glove.”
Johnny must have really been surrounded by some hardcore sycophants. Because not one person thought to take his phone and say, “Listen, maybe delete one or two of the exclamation points, especially after ‘cum guzzler.’ You’re coming off a bit weird.” I don’t know how much longer any career sycophants might keep kissing Johnny’s butt, because one anonymous studio head tells THR that Johnny’s phone isn’t exactly ringing off the hook:
“You simply can’t work with him now. He’s radioactive.”
And according to THR, a whole lot of people really weren’t interested in working with him prior to his libel suit either:
The fact that 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. continued to work with Depp on Murder on the Orient Express and a Fantastic Beasts sequel, respectively, in the wake of Heard’s allegations becoming public in May 2016 raised eyebrows around town. The Warners case was particularly baffling.
One studio executive who has worked with Depp in recent years says his inner demons had long ago bled into his professional life, making him “a huge liability” thanks to frequent tardiness and costly behavior, all cataloged in the U.K. suit.
THR hypothesizes that Johnny likely can’t dig himself out of his current hole because he’s become BFFs with his lawyer, Adam Waldman. Sources tell THR that Adam Waldman told Johnny to cut out people who have been with him for decades and that Adam is Johnny’s, “Rasputin.” That would be so confusing if it ever got back to Johnny. I mean, a vampire-looking dude with facial hair who had an insanely high tolerance to drugs, and the comparison isn’t to Johnny?