Amber Heard’s career seems to be in the crisis after the jury ruled in favour of her ex-husband and star Johnny Depp in the defamation case.
The verdict handed down Wednesday in Virginia favoured Depp in the case. Now, many social media users are wondering if Depp lost big budget movies because of Head, will the Aquaman actress end up losing such big franchise movies aswell?
Case
The couple split in 2016. They battled in court over an op-ed Heard wrote for The Washington Post in 2018, in which she described surviving domestic violence — without mentioning Depp by name.
Depp sued for $50 million in damages. The jury unanimously found that Heard could not substantiate her allegations against Depp and that she knew her claims of abuse were false when she published her 2018 essay.
Jury
The jury determined that Heard acted with actual malice when writing her op-ed. The jury awarded Depp $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages in his defamation suit.
Heard had countersued for $100 million and said she was only ever violent with Depp in self-defense or defense of her younger sister. Heard’s countersuit centered around three statements made by Depp’s former attorney Adam Waldman in 2020 to the Daily Mail, in which he described Heard’s allegations of abuse as a ‘hoax’.
Uncertain career possibilities
Future of the Aquaman actor will be challenging as per Alexandra Villa of In House PR, who has previously represented Oscar nominated actors and films over two decades, while she believes that Depp could become the world’s highest paid actor.
Villa told the Mirror Magazine, “Amber’s career appears to be in crisis right now. What has happened will frighten the big Hollywood studios.” “Smaller productions too will be wary about investing money into Amber for any project,” she added.
Villa shared, “In my opinion, at this moment, producers will have to consider carefully whether they will hire her as the momentum of public opinion has shifted against her.”
She went on to talk about the public support for Depp, saying, “The crowds outside the court too show how there is huge public swell of support for Johnny. And there are 4.5m who signed a change.org petition asking for Amber to be removed from Aquaman 2.”
“As a publicist handling talent when you learn of this, you know that is the audience right there,” she further shared. “People who take time to write letters or join petitions are the people who care – it is a case of the ‘consumer has spoken.’”
The PR expert, however, believes that Heard’s career could rebound as she presented the outlet with some examples of stars like Mel Gibson, Robert Downey Junior and Michael Jackson, who were involved in big sandals but managed to recover from career ending issues.
