Will Hollywood ditch Johnny Depp over High Court ‘wife-beater’ ruling?

Industry experts say the actor’s critically acclaimed career is over - but high-profile friends claim he’ll be ‘vindicated’

Johnny Depp attends the launch of his new Pogues documentary
(Image credit: Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP via Getty Images)

Show-business pundits are predicting that Johnny Depp’s career is set to tank after the actor lost his libel claim against The Sun over an article describing him as a “wife beater”.

The Hollywood star sued over a 2018 column written by the tabloid’s executive editor Dan Wootton which referred to “overwhelming evidence” that Depp attacked his now ex-wife Amber Heard during their two-year marriage. But the High Court ruled yesterday that the allegations of violence were “substantially true”.

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Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.