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Primary source constructing Depp's star image as boyish yet sensitive.

After Moving to Los Angeles with his band at age 20, Depp's then-wife, Lori Ann Allison, introduced him to Nicolas Cage. The pair became regular drinking buddies and Cage slowly encouraged Depp to pursue acting, helping him land the role as the main character's boyfriend in A Nightmare on Elm Street (Craven, 1984).

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A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) ⭐ 7.4 | Horror

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Primary source constructing Depp's star image as a teen heartthrob.

Depp became widely known through 21 Jump Street (1987-1991). He established himself as a 'teen heartthrob' through his role as Officer Tom Hansen, an image reinforced by magazines and fan culture.

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21 Jump Street (TV Series 1987–1991) ⭐ 7.2 | Crime, Drama, Mystery

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Edward Scissorhands (1990) ⭐ 7.8 | Dark Fantasy, Romance

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Primary source constructing Depp's star image as different and authentic.

Starring alongside Winona Ryder, Depp's performance as Edward Scissorhands solidified his position as an eccentric outsider. His character embodied themes of vulnerability and alienation, altering traditional masculinity.

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Secondary source constructing Depp's star image as alternative and rebellious.

Depp made effort to actively reject his fame as a 'pretty boy' by taking roles that didn't highlight his looks. This was the first layer of Depp's image as an anti-commerical, "authentic" figure resisting Hollywood.

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Johnny Depp is. But maybe he’s too gorgeous for his own good. John Lyttle on the star of Don Juan DeMarco and Ed Wood

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Secondary source: a collaboration which as become a recognisable brand identity within popular culture.

Burton-Depp collaborations became 'a brand of their own' which only reinforced Depp's difference in an industry dominated by action heroes such as Tom Cruise. During the 1990s, Depp reflected the "bohemian artist" archetype which aligned him more with European film traditions rather than American ones.

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Johnny Depp Tim Burton T-Shirts for Sale | TeePublic

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Be Unique. Shop johnny depp tim burton t-shirts sold by independent artists from around the globe. Buy the highest quality johnny depp tim burton t-shirts on the internet.

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Authenticity, wildness and masculine freedom

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Secondary source: strengthened and redefined his image

Since 2015, Depp has been the face of Sauvage after they launched their first men's fragrance. His association with the luxury brand emphasised their desire to move away from traditional polished masculinity toward a more unconventional rugged ideal. This relationship contributed heavily to Depp's "authentic outsider" star image. He was a musician and artist alongside an actor, distinguishing him from other actors and positioning Sauvage as a lifetime symbol rather than just a product.

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Media persona emphasising artistic seriousness 

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Self-presentation: an attempt to extend his star image into other areas of the arts.

Alongside his film roles, Depp developed a media persona that showcased his seriousness towards his art, and contempt towards Hollywood. He previously described acting as "playing dress-up" rather than a career; he tends to align himself with musicians and writers and his collaborations with rock icons, including his band Hollywood Vampires, reinforces his countercultural affiliation.

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Cocaine binges and $30,000 wine bills: Johnny Depp's lifestyle laid bare

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Secondary source: Depp's rebellious yet unstable image continues.

Depp has described in interviews that he began using drugs as a teenager as an escape from his turbulent family life. This substance abuse continued into his career and heavily contributed to his image as a nonconformist figure. He has admitted to using drugs and alcohol to "numb" emotional pain, and also to previous addictions but denied being violent or out of control due to them.

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Secondary source: Depp becomes a global superstar.

Depp's star image reached new heights with his performance of Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Disney executives initially feared Depp's flamboyant and humorous acting, but embraced it greatly when Sparrow became a global phenomenon.

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Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) ⭐ 8.1 | Action, Adventure, Fantasy

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Secondary source constructing Depp's star image as unstable and possible dangerous.

In 1994, during a fight with his girlfriend Kate Moss, Johnny was arrested for trashing a hotel room, after which he was ordered to pay $10k in damages, and charges were dropped. This was one of the first instances of Depp's violent nature that the public was exposed to. In 1999, he was arrested for assaulting paparazzi after luring a photographer into the back of a restaurant and striking him with a wooden board. During this time, the public also began to learn of Depp's drinking and drug habits.

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The Red Flags of Johnny Depp The Public Ignored Three Years Ago

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I recently had to work on a project for my class about a time where social media had a huge impact on a specific situation. The first thing…

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Secondary source associating Depp with scandal, instability and public downfall.

In 2020, Depp sued The Sun newspaper for calling him a "wife beater". He lost the case after the High Court in London ruled against Depp after concluding that the claims were "substantially true"; the judge ruled that "12 of the 14 alleged incidents of domestic violence had occured". Following this ruling, Depp resigned, at Warner Bros request, from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

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Johnny Depp loses libel case over Sun ‘wife beater’ claim

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The judge says the Sun’s article claiming the actor assaulted Amber Heard was “substantially true”.

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Secondary source: fractured Depp's public persona having a polarising effect on his image.

After Depp married Amber Heard in 2015, she filed for divorce a year later, accusing him of domestic abuse. Claiming that Depp both physically and emotionally abused her during the relationship, she obtained a temporary restraining order. After denying the allegations and alleging Heard was the abuser, their divorce was finalised in 2017 when they released a joint statement which read "there was never any intent of physical and emotional harm".

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Amber Heard continued her explosive counter-argument to Johnny Depp's claim of defamation, a narrative journey that on Thursday included tearfully recounting her contention that her former husband sexually assaulted her with a liquor bottle in an alcohol-fueled rage.

The alleged March 2015 incident in Australia has been a focal point of the four-week trial, with details of how Depp came to sever the top of his middle finger sharply disputed by opposing parties. Depp has testified that Heard threw a bottle at him.

Heard testified that the injury - which she said she did not witness because she had been given a sedative to sleep - came after Depp sexually assaulted her following a fight in which he accused her of sleeping with co-stars Billy Bob Thornton and Eddie Redmayne - accusations she denies.

"At some point he's on top of me, screaming I fucking hate you, you ruined my fucking life," Heard testified. "I'm on the countertop, he had me by the neck and was on top of me.

"My back was on the countertop. I thought he was punching me. I felt this pressure on my pubic bone and I could feel his arm moving. It looked like he was punching me. I could just feel this pressure," Heard said.

"I remember looking around the room, looking at all the broken bottles, broken glass and I remember not wanting to move because I didn't know if it was broken, I didn't know if the bottle that he had inside me was broken."

Heard also described the aftermath of the night, finding her shredded burgundy nightgown used to wrap strips of raw steak and vulgar messages daubed in blood and paint around the house. Outside the house, she said Depp was still at work, trying to write more disparaging messages by urinating on a wall.

"His security looked at me and not laughed, played it off. It was like corralling a wild animal back into the house with his penis out of his pants," Heard said.

Heard testified that when Depp returned to Los Angeles he needed to get off cocaine before he could have surgery on his hand. "I thought he might die or kill himself. Certainly seemed like the trajectory he was on."

Heard later contradicted the testimony of Depp's security guard Travis McGivern who had said that during a fight in Los Angeles, Heard had thrown a Red Bull can at Depp. Heard says it was Depp who threw a can, and "took a swing" at her sister. After that, she said, she punched Depp.

But Heard said that during another fight in December 2015, Depp had headbutted her - an accusation Depp denies. She testified that during that confrontation she felt that this was how she might die.

Earlier, Heard told jurors that Depp was surrounded by security guards and assistants who enabled him to avoid the consequences of his drug and alcohol issues. The court was shown photographs of Depp passed out, which Heard said she starting taking in 2013 because he would black out and later deny what had taken place when he was intoxicated.

"He wouldn't remember, or he would deny it. There was no one to back me up - just his employees versus my word," Heard said.

Heard later testified about a trip to London in 2013, where she and Depp were filming movies, when Depp disappeared and came home so intoxicated that he was carried into their rented home "like a baby" by a security guard.

Heard testified: "His assistants and other security guards were shaking their heads. I remember thinking: surely this is it. He was very sick for at least two days. I felt at that juncture very encouraged that we were on the same page ... that he had hit rock bottom.

"I understood enough about addiction to know you have to hit rock bottom, have some consequence to get better."

Depp, she added, got briefly sober. "I thought we were on a good path to sobriety," she said.

"I felt very encouraged that everybody and I were on the same page, and I felt encouraged that we were in a new chapter," Heard added.

But Depp soon relapsed, she said. The court was told that Depp and Heard's father ran out of drugs at the couple's engagement party, and her father left the party with Depp's security team to pick up more. Heard has previously testified about her father's heroin addiction.

Heard testified that she had insisted on a pre-nuptial agreement. "I wanted to eliminate any doubt in his mind and in other people's minds. So I brought it up to him and brought it up to my therapist," she said.

But Depp, she said, had ruled it out. "He accused me of having one foot out," Heard said, and told her "the only way out of this is death".

Heard said that Depp would become angry if any of her movies were scripted with sex scenes. She said: "Every time I got a script, it was what kind of, you know, how I was dressing? ... Did I have a sex scene?"

Heard said she compensated for his jealousy by declining more sexually provocative parts or petitioning wardrobe managers to allow her to dress more conservatively.

"I had to eggshell or tiptoe around him when I had any kind of scene," Heard said of the conflict.

Depp, she said, hated that she worked with James Franco in The Adderall Diaries and had kicked her in the back on a flight from Boston to Los Angeles.

"He called me a slut" for the scenes, Heard said, adding how he accused her of liking filming the scenes.

"He was being really explicit about my body, about how I liked it. He called me go-getting, a slut. He asked if I was wet, why I wasn't looking at him ... did James do this and that to me?"

The jury heard Depp "howling like an animal" in an audio recording recorded by Heard on the flight. Depp, Heard said, had locked himself in the bathroom and passed out.

After the Met Gala in New York, Heard testified, Depp had thrown a bottle at her. She told the court: "He shoved me down on the sofa and at some point he just whacked me in the face. I suspected I had a broken nose. I remember it being swollen, discolored and red."

Heard testified that a team of detox doctors was brought into help Depp after the LA-Boston flight. The doctors elected to keep Depp on painkillers so he could finish filming, she said. But Depp, Heard said, was taking "about double" the number of opiate painkillers he told his doctors he was taking. Depp, Heard said, would "nod out" or fall asleep in mid-sentence.

"He'd been lying to them so he could get extra-high before he had to detox," Heard testified.

"I didn't understand what was going on," Heard said. "I hadn't seen anything like this. I was trying to figure what happened."

In 2014, Heard said she started attending daily meetings of Al-Anon, a group for relatives and friends of people with alcohol addiction.

Eventually, Heard said, Depp agreed to a detox program under the care of a team at his home in the Bahamas. But the process did not go smoothly, she said.

"He slapped me across the face, but he did so while he was crying," Heard said. "I shouldn't have been there. I don't know how to detox someone. I don't know why the doctors and nurses wanted me to be there. It was hell."

The court is out on Friday and all of next week, leaving jurors 10 days to mull Heard's testimony before Depp's counsel can mount a cross-examination.

This article was amended on 6 May 2022. The group for relatives and friends of people with alcohol addiction is Al-Anon, not Alcoholics Anonymous as an earlier version said due to an editing error. The latter is for alcoholics themselves.

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Amber Heard testifies Johnny Depp assaulted her with liquor bottle

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Actor tearfully recounts alleged attack by ex-husband during alcohol-fueled rage in Australia in 2015

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Secondary source: for his fans, reinforced his image as a misunderstood outsider, but for critics, highlighted him as a hugely controversial figure.

This Netflix series shows both testimonies side-by-side, exploring the trial that 'set Hollywood ablaze' and the online fallout that followed. It told the story among the age of social media and begged the question: 'Can a jury ever be truly fair in the age of social media?'

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Watch DEPP V HEARD | Netflix Official Site

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Showing both testimonies side-by-side for the first time, this series explores the trial that set Hollywood ablaze and the online fallout that ensued.

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Secondary source constructing Depp's star image as controversial and rebellious.

Dior released an ad featuring Depp alongside Native American imagery which received backlash by critics who accused Depp of cultural appropriation. Dior swiftly removed the ad but Depp defended it, explaining that it was a tribute rather than exploitation.

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Dior is facing backlash for promoting its perfume line Sauvage with an advertisement featuring Native American imagery.

The fashion brand teased the ad, which stars actor Johnny Depp, on Twitter on Friday as "an authentic journey deep into the Native American soul in a sacred, founding and secular territory". It has since deleted the tweet and all references to the campaign on social media.

An extended video promoting the $150 fragrance shows Depp walking amid the red rocks of south-western Utah, stacking rocks to mark his path, as a Native American fancy war dancer Canku One Star, a Rosebud Sioux member, performs on cliff and a young woman, portrayed by Canadian actor of First Nations descent Tanaya Beatty, follows Depp from a distance.

In Dior's Sauvage ad, featuring Johnny Depp, Tanaya Beatty, a Canadian actor of First Nations descent follows Depp from a distance. Photograph: Dior

Depp also whips out a guitar and plays a famous riff by Shawnee guitarist Link Wray.

Scholars and critics have responded that the campaign is racist and a clear cut case of appropriation.

"It is so deeply offensive and racist," said Crystal Echo Hawk, CEO of the media watchdog group IllumiNative. "I don't know how anyone in 2019 can think a campaign like this can go down well."

Dior's Sauvage line of perfumes isn't new - it first launched in the 1960s - but the brand's continued use of the name alongside Native American imagery has drawn particular criticism. The French name of the fragrance line translates to "wild" or "savage" in English.

"These types of tropes, these types of narratives about Native people as savages they do real harm," Echo Hawk said. "And fuel racism."

The absurdity of the @Dior #Sauvage Ad w/ Johnny Depp:
* Supposedly anti-appropriation, but goes balls deep in appropriation.
* Titles the actress as maiden & the native actor, warrior.
* Says it is helping Native folx, but invokes stupid/ignorant "indian" tropes.
...
- Dallas Goldtooth (@dallasgoldtooth) August 30, 2019

"Honestly, I couldn't help but laugh because this drips with irony - every single aspect of it," said Dallas Goldtooth, an organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network, an environmental and economic justice group. "But I'm also upset and angry at the same time."

The video "romanticized Native Americans as relics from the past", Goldtooth said. "It's deplorable that Dior thought this was appropriate."

So the fact that "Sauvage" is on some "we are the land" BS is not surprising, but as always I find it deeply disturbing when brands force Native people to make the choice between stereotypes and misrepresentation, or utter invisibility.
- Dr. Adrienne Keene (@NativeApprops) August 30, 2019

In a press release, the French fashion giant noted that the film was created in collaboration with Native American consultants and the advocacy group Americans for Indian Opportunity, with the aim of "moving away from clichés in order to avoid the cultural appropriation and subversion that so often taints images representing Native peoples".

But Dior's attempt to work with Native Americans fell short, critics said. "It feels like they tried to do it 'right' and involved some great people - but it's still an ad for a notoriously racist company and a product called 'Savage'," wrote Adrienne Keene, a scholar and founder of the blog Native Appropriations.

Depp has previously drawn criticism for his portrayal of Tonto, a Native American character in Disney's 2013 remake of The Lone Ranger.

Dior did not respond directly to a request for comment.

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Dior perfume ad featuring Johnny Depp criticized over Native American tropes

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Dior is facing backlash for promoting its perfume line Sauvage with an advertisement featuring Native American imagery. The fashion brand teased the ad, which stars actor Johnny Depp, on Twitter on Friday as "an authentic journey deep into the Native American soul in a sacred, founding and secular territory".

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Secondary source constructing Depp's star image as a victim of negative media presentation.

Depp often speaks in interviews about how he feels he is misunderstood as an artist by the public. Many critics view his behaviour as self-indulgent and disconnected from accountability. Despite this, he retains a large loyal fanbase that also view him as a victim of media bias.

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Johnny Depp: ‘I was shunned, dumped, cancelled – however you want to define it’

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The trials of the past few years have left the star somewhere between defiance and acceptance. And for his next act? A return to directing

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Jeanne du Barry (2023) ⭐ 6.7 | Period Drama, Biography

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Secondary source functioning as a rehabilitation and reassertion of Depp's star image.

After winning the U.S defamation case, Depp began rebuilding his career. He starred in Jeanne de Barry, marking his return to acting. He also renewed his long-term Dior Sauvage contract which was reportedly worth over $20 million.

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Self-presentation: Depp returned to Paris Fashion Week in classic Johnny style.

3 decades after his last appearance, Depp returned to PFW explaining that France has held a special place in his heart since he moved there with his ex Vanessa Paradis to raise their children.

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Johnny Depp Makes Return to Paris Fashion Week for First Time in More Than 30 Years

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Johnny Depp made a rare appearance at Dior's 2025 runway show at Paris Fashion Week, marking his return to the fashion event for the first time in over 30 years.

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Secondary source: image of maturity and transformation continues.

Upcoming action-thriller starring Depp playing a "mysterious day drinker" on a private yacht. This will be Depp's first major Hollywood film since his legal controversies; working with Lionsgate suggests he is being warmly welcomed back into mainstream cinema.

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Day Drinker: Directed by Marc Webb. With Johnny Depp, Madelyn Cline, Penélope Cruz, Marc Webb. An enigmatic stranger forms an unlikely bond with a grieving bartender who lost her lover, their lives intertwining in unexpected ways.