Johnny Depp’s Ebenezer uncancellation is the worst kind of Christmas present

Heard described being slapped, kicked and choked; thrown against walls and furniture; dragged by her hair and, on one occasion, pinned to a bed and repeatedly punched in the head. 

In December 2015, she said Depp headbutted her so violently that she suffered headaches for a week and pulled out clumps of her hair. The High Court judge accepted her account of the incident, finding that Depp had deliberately headbutted her and torn out clumps of her hair.

Heard also alleged sexual violence, including that Depp raped her with a bottle – something not accepted by the English court, or held during a criminal trial – but there was plenty else in the evidence that should have been enough to give anyone pause.

Take the text messages Depp sent to his friend and fellow actor Paul Bettany, suggesting they burn Heard, drown her and then have sex with her corpse to make sure she was dead – an example, Depp claimed, of his “abstract sense of humour”. Elsewhere, he referred to her as a “bitch”. These were not things somebody claimed he had said. They were his own words.

So, considering all of that, does no one else find it slightly nauseating to see his sneering, sinister face plastered across Tube platforms in adverts for Ebenezer, his first major Hollywood film in eight years? Or that he’s been given a glitzy UK premiere in Leicester Square, where he was interviewed about his favourite part of Christmas dinner on the red carpet by Wilf from The Traitors? I feel like I’m going mad and everyone has suffered from some sort of collective amnesia. 

Depp was dropped from the Fantastic Beasts franchise following the High Court ruling. Yet here we are, apparently in the midst of a full-scale rehabilitation tour. He is currently playing Scrooge in the remake of A Christmas Carol, which comes with an absurdly star-studded cast including Ian McKellen, Rupert Grint and Daisy Ridley. 

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I will find it hard to look at any of them quite the same way again. What size cheque could possibly make spending months on set alongside a man with this history worthwhile? And that’s before we get to Depp’s longstanding reputation for being difficult to work with, with allegations of volatile behaviour following him around film sets.

Meanwhile, while Depp’s supporters will remember the 2022 defamation case as vindication for their hero, others still shiver at the sheer enthusiasm with which the public turned against Heard.

I was still a teenager when the US trial took place in 2022, following Heard’s 2018 Washington Post op-ed, headlined “I spoke up against sexual violence – and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change”.

She did not name Depp, but he sued her for $50 million, arguing that the article’s implication that he was an abuser was false and had destroyed his career. Heard then countersued for $100 million. 

The six-week televised trial in Virginia became a full-on internet spectacle as both actors gave graphic testimony about their relationship. Both Depp and Heard were awarded damages (him $15m (£12m); her $2m) and both agreed to drop their appeals and settle out of court. 

I remember the jokes about how people would have loved Depp to kiss, grab or grope them in the way Heard alleged he had done to her. Men and women of all ages, across the political spectrum, called her “Amber Turd” in reference to Depp’s claim that she had defecated in their bed. Someone even hacked the movie database IMDb and changed her name to that.

Armchair psychologists confidently diagnosed Heard as a sociopath because of the way she cried or didn’t cry on the stand. In what felt like the first great pendulum swing against MeToo, the internet had decided that the woman alleging abuse was the real villain, and it was apparently open season.

What made it particularly depressing was how enthusiastically women participated. It wasn’t just a few particularly unpleasant men on Twitter, young women, many of whom would have considered themselves feminists treating a woman’s account of domestic violence as the funniest thing they’d ever heard – literally lip-syncing on TikTok to parts of Heard’s evidence. 

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The public’s appetite for mocking Heard has subsided somewhat. A lot of those women have grown up and, to their credit, some have acknowledged that they cannot believe they ever bought into the Depp narrative. We’re all allowed to change our minds, but I will always take a certain umbrage over the fact that they laughed along at the time. 

But how different is the mood, really, when Marilyn Manson, one of Depp’s close friends, with whom he exchanged messages discussing Heard, is still booked to perform at Wembley next summer? Manson himself has been accused of sexual and domestic abuse by multiple women, including his former partner Evan Rachel Wood, allegations he denies. 

So, while we’re all patting ourselves on the back and celebrating the career death of a terrible man (well, apart from the right wing conspiracy nutjobs still convinced Brand’s sentencing is part of some grand establishment takedown), perhaps Russell can take comfort in one thing whilst he’s sitting in his cell at Wandsworth Prison. 

Apparently, all it takes to be welcomed back into the limelight with open arms is a Dickensian costume and a Christmas film.