As Johnny Depp’s defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard nears the end of the third week, a petition calling for Heard to be removed from “Aquaman 2” has passed two million signatures.
“Warner Brothers and DC Entertainment should and must remove Heard from their ‘Aquaman 2’ film project. They must not ignore the suffering of Heard’s victims, and must not glamorize a domestic abuser,” the Change.org petition writes.
READ MORE: Officers Say No Injuries Seen On Amber Heard After Fight With Johnny Depp
“Men are victims of domestic abuse, just like women. This must be recognized, and action must be taken to prevent a known abuser from being celebrated within the entertainment industry,” it adds. “Do the right thing. Remove Amber Heard from ‘Aquaman 2’.”
After Heard previously accused Depp of domestic abuse, he was dropped from Disney’s fifth “Pirates of the Caribbean” as Captain Jack Sparrow.
On Wednesday, Depp’s former agent Christian Carino testified that he believes Heard’s accusations were the reason Depp was dropped from the film.
As Carino explained, Depp’s involvement in multiple lawsuits — suing his former business manager, his former lawyer, and Heard — had tarnished the mystique he’d spent decades building.
“I think what he was known for offscreen was a shroud of mystery of who he was, because he was not visible to the public,” Carino said. “It changed with the exposure that came with the lawsuits.”
Added Carino: “People don’t want to hear that the people they look up to are in litigation. And the more oxygen it takes up in the overall news or coverage of an individual and the less focused it is on that person’s career, the less interested studios, brands, the general public becomes in that person.”
“Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” is set to be released on March 17, 2023.
