That everyone accepted this framing, that she “ruined his career”, makes me so fucking furious. It doesn’t hold up to an ounce of scrutiny once you think about it for more than two goddamn seconds:
Hollywood does not care about abuse allegations! Bill Cosby, Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, Sean Penn, they all had thriving careers even after their crimes became known to the public.
Depp became known for being excessively difficult to work with. He’d show up to set late, he’d show up high, he’d show up drunk, he stopped memorizing his lines and needed them fed through an earpiece! He also violently assaulted a crew member. All this probably would have been fine with The Execs, but…
Depp-fronted movies weren’t making money! The Lone Ranger bombed, Pirates 4 and 5 drastically under performed, Transcendence flopped, Crimes of Grindelwald flopped, there are like 4 other movies he starred in that flopped so hard I can’t even remember them! He stopped being a reliable moneymaker, which is the only thing Hollywood really cares about.
If anyone “ruined” his career besides himself, it was this 2018 Rolling Stone piece that revealed all his unhinged behavior to the public. But he didn’t sue Stephen Rodrick, he didn’t sue Rolling Stone, he didn’t sue the ACLU (they admitted to ghostwriting Heard’s op-ed), he didn’t sue the Washington Post for publishing it, he sued his victim. He did so in a Virginia court to take advantage of weak laws against frivolous lawsuits and he had it live streamed so that not only would she be forced to relive his abuse and assault of her in front of the entire world, but also so he could sic his vicious stans on her.
In contrast, he has done immeasurable damage to her career. She was a solid performer on the rise when they met and studios are going to regard her as toxic for years, regardless of her talent, the truth of the allegations, anything. She escaped Depp and he has spent the last 7 years abusing her via the legal system. He made legions of people complicit in his abuse. He emboldened countless abusers to copy his playbook in silencing their victims.
Fuck the Tiktokers who mocked Heard’s testimony, fuck the YouTubers that made thousands livestreaming the trial, fuck the media that portrayed this as celebrity nonsense, fuck the right wing idealogues that highjacked the discourse, fuck that non-sequestered jury, and fuck anyone who tries to paint themselves as a reasonable centrist with “well they both sound toxic to me”.
And oh hey, here’s a list of celebrities who bought his bullshit hook line and sinker if, like me, you’d rather avoid their work in the future.
origamiaround
areudirty
gummygunk
stormborns
dededos
