In a 2018 article in The Sun, which detailed Depp’s tumultuous 15-month marriage to the actress Amber Heard, Depp was labelled a “wife beater”. He sued the paper and endured a 16-day trial this July, during which several salacious – and disturbing – details were revealed.

Heard, who filed for divorce in 2016, said in court she “was afraid he was going to kill [her]”. She said when they fought, Depp would get physical.

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“The physical abuse included punching, slapping, kicking, headbutting and choking me, as well as throwing me into things, pulling me by my hair, and shoving me or pushing me to the ground,” she said.

Depp countered by accusing Heard of leaving human faeces in their Los Angeles penthouse bed and throwing a vodka bottle at him, which wound up severing his fingertip to the bone.

Still, the scandal isn’t slowing down sales of Sauvage. The Guardian recently reported that defiant Depp fans have been buying the fragrance to support the star after Dior aired Depp’s ad during the highly rated The Great British Bake Off.

The ad aired in the US this month, though late at night during commercial breaks for The Late Late Show With James Corden and The Late Show With Steven Colbert.

“Dior is feeling a lot of pressure right now to do the right thing and ditch Depp,” British branding expert Jeetendr Sehdev said. “But in today’s market, and particularly with millennials, silence is complicit.”

‘J.K. just couldn’t stand up for him any more’

Depp has always been open about his rock ’n’ roll lifestyle. At this summer’s trial, he said his drug repertoire started at age 11, and, in a 2018 Rolling Stone profile, he said his wine consumption had cost as much as US$30,000-50,000 a month.

“The last couple years, his bad-boy brand has started to work against him,” one major Hollywood studio publicist said. “It was cute even at 45. At 57, it’s not.”

On November 6, after the verdict in favour of The Sun, Depp revealed on Instagram that he was forfeiting his role in the third instalment of J.K. Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts.

“I have been asked to resign by Warner Bros. from my role as Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts and I have respected and agreed to that request,” he wrote. “My life and career will not be defined by this moment.”

“J.K. just couldn’t stand up for him any more,” a Warner Bros. casting director said.

“She stood by him when Twitter protested his casting in the first movie, after ‘wife beater’ first came out. His career really rested on her saving him. But as a self-described victim of domestic abuse herself, she couldn’t do it.”

But “it’s not a total bust”, a Warner Bros. studio executive said. “Johnny’s still getting US$10-16 million for one day’s work he already shot, because his pay-or-play contract guarantees he gets paid under any circumstances. Though when it’s said and done, he only keeps about US$2 million. With Johnny, that’s not going to last long.”

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‘He’s a guy who thinks the badder he is, the more manly’

Depp started his early career as a musician. He dropped out of high school at 16 and moved to LA with his band, The Kids. One record producer who knew Depp when he first arrived on the Hollywood music scene said he worked “hard to appear cool”.

“He’s a guy who thinks the badder he is, the more manly,” the producer said.

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Depp’s career caught fire quickly. After the late 80s show 21 Jump Street turned him into a heartthrob, Cry-Baby and Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands in the 90s helped turn him into a bona fide star.

He had his flops, too, including when he portrayed his idol, the gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, in the movie version of Thompson’s book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in 1998.

“His heroes are all addicts,” an indie producer, who knows Depp well, said. “Hunter Thompson, Keith Richards, Warren Zevon.”

Insiders say Depp hated the scrutiny that came with fame almost as much as he hated the Hollywood machine itself.

When he played Captain Jack Sparrow in Disney’s first Pirates of the Caribbean in 2003, Depp wasn’t afraid to push the boundaries – or incense some of Hollywood’s biggest executives.

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“When some execs came down to watch the test,” Depp said at a talk during the 2020 Zurich Film Festival, “It was: ‘What’s he doing? What is this pirate? Mentally gone? Incredibly drunk? Or gay?’ My answer was: ‘All my characters are gay.’ I didn’t hear anything after that.”

“Later on he started being late for things,” a Disney exec, who worked on a number of Depp’s projects starting from about 1990, said.

“Shoots, interviews. He never hid his partying. But he finally hit the wall on Murder on the Orient Express. Right when rehearsals began, in 2017, he walked in late the first day and Ken Branagh, who directed, very calmly said: ‘That’s not the way I work. I don’t allow lateness. If you choose that behaviour, you can leave the film. Right now. It’s fine.’

“Johnny just said, ‘I hear you, sir, I won’t do it again.’ It humiliated him in front of stars, as big as he was.”

‘He bit the hand that fed him’

It seemed Depp might have found some stability when he met Heard, his co-star in 2011’s The Rum Diary. By 2014 the couple were engaged. Heard became his second wife the following year.

But the relationship was tumultuous from the start. When filing for divorce, in 2016, Heard got a temporary restraining order, claiming she’d suffered physical abuse when Depp was drunk or on drugs.

The year after his divorce, Depp fired his United Talent Agency agent of three decades, Tracey Jacobs, the only person who could ever rein him in, the Disney employee said.

“When careers start to go down the tubes, what do they do? They fire their agents,” one UTA agent said. “He bit the hand that fed him. It was a very big blow. Tracey got him. She understood the bad-boy thing.

She liked the rock world, dated rock stars. She got him cult films, then steered his career toward big money. Disney was less afraid to cast him in Pirates because they trusted her.”

Those 30 years of box-office success threatened to go up in smoke during this summer’s trial, which exposed accusations of at least 14 physical altercations between Depp and Heard.

‘He could make movies outside America’

It doesn’t mean everyone in Hollywood has turned their back on him.

“I watched him dress up as Captain Jack and visit kids in hospitals,” the Disney exec said. “He has a good heart. That’s what gets him in trouble sometimes, his vulnerability.”

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Depp is trying to rally support, posting on Instagram speaking directly to fans. In one post, Depp performed a song he wrote with his friend Jeff Beck, called Isolation.

As part of his Fantastic Beasts resignation, Depp said he was determined to clear his name.

“The surreal judgment of the court in the UK will not change my fight to tell the truth,” he wrote, “and I confirm that I plan to appeal. My resolve remains strong and I intend to prove the allegations against me are false.”

But before that can even happen, Depp faces another court case, a defamation case aimed directly at Heard over a 2018 op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post. Depp suggested Heard alleged in that piece that he’d abused her. The trial commences in Virginia in May.

“After that ruling, I’d say his brand is over,” Sehdev said.

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“Generations have moved on, everything’s changed,” the UTA agent told Insider. “Let’s say Johnny does a Netflix film, makes US$5 million. He winds up with US$2 million. I don’t know his budget these days, but what would it get him?

“Would Donna Langley, chairwoman of Universal Pictures, cast him – and in what? He could make movies outside America, but how’s that working out for Woody Allen? My bet is he’ll keep tampering with music. Wild rock dudes are allowed any behaviour. Audiences expect it.”

But it might be his old friend and mentor, Tim Burton, who revives Depp’s career. Rumour has it Burton will finally make Beetlejuice 2 with a juicy role for Depp, perhaps even the title role.

“If he manages to get one more good part, he could ostensibly come back,” the indie producer Orian Williams said. “I would consider hiring him for the right role. You can question a lot, but you can’t ever question his talent.”

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This article originally appeared on Business Insider