Johnny Depp Sparks Controversy With New Career Honor

(Dreamstime)

Johnny Depp will achieve a new career high when the Rome Film Festival awards him its Lifetime Achievement in October while also screening the actor’s latest directorial effort, “Modi — Three Days on the Wings of Madness,” but not everyone is clapping.

The announcement has faced backlash on social media due to past abuse allegations from Depp’s ex-wife Amber Heard against the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star.

Depp sued Heard for $50 million after she wrote a 2018 column for the Washington Post claiming she was a survivor of domestic abuse. She did not publicly name Depp, but Depp said the allegations affected his ability to work.

Heard countersued, claiming Depp orchestrated a smear campaign against her, but in June last year the jury determined Heard defamed Depp on all three counts. He was awarded $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages. Heard was awarded $2 million in compensatory damages.

Depp later claimed that Hollywood “boycotted” him, but social media users were quick to point out that this was not the case.

“We were told he was ‘cancelled’, failing up,” one X user wrote.

“But I thought the DV allegations were supposed to harm his career?” another wrote.

“We keep rewarding violent men,” a third wrote.

“Modi — Three Days on the Wings of Madness” has been described as a “seventy-two-hour whirlwind in the life of bohemian artist Amedeo Modigliani,” according to Deadline. The film follows the artist through a series of chaotic events in war-torn Paris in 1916, with French actress Antonia Desplat and Riccardo Scamarcio also starring.

“On the run from the police, his desire to end his career and leave the city is dismissed by fellow artists Maurice Utrillo, Chaim Soutine, and Modi’s muse, Beatrice Hastings,” the synopsis reads. “Modi seeks advice from his art dealer and friend, Leopold Zborowski — however, after a night of hallucinations, the chaos in Modi’s mind reaches a crescendo when faced with an American collector, Maurice Gangnat, who has the power to change his life.”