According to actor Johnny Depp’s former agent, his career was already badly hit before his marriage to Amber Heard. Depp was “the biggest movie star in the world” before “his star faded” due to drugs, alcohol and “his unprofessional behavior” starting in 2010, Tracey Jacobs said in the Heard-Depp defamation lawsuit.

Jacobs represented Depp for 30 years before he fired her in 2016.

“He was consistently late for practically every film,” Jacobs said in the pre-recorded statement. “Teams don’t like to wait hours for the star of the movie to show up,” she explained.

“It made people reluctant to employ him.” She says his drug and alcohol use interfered with his work. He regularly used a headset so that someone whispered his text to him. When asked, his ex-agent tells of Depp’s aggression problems, which have increased over time. He also romanticized drugs.

However, the actor never became violent in her presence. Depp sued Jacobs after the termination, and the two settled out of court in 2018.

Depp’s former wealth manager Joel Mandel, who worked for Depp from 1999 to 2016, also explained that his career stumbled from 2010 onwards with “several films in a row that didn’t work”. By 2015, “it was clear that there were alcohol and drug issues” and “that translated into more erratic behavior,” Mandel said.

Nevertheless, Depp spent hundreds of thousands of dollars every month. His financial situation was “extremely” worrying.

Depp has sued Heard, to whom he was married between 2015 and 2017, for $50 million in damages. The “Pirates of the Caribbean” star accuses the 36-year-old of having seriously damaged his career with false allegations of domestic violence.

The background is an article for the “Washington Post” from 2018, in which Heard described himself as a victim of domestic violence without naming Depp.

Heard has responded with a counterclaim against the 58-year-old, demanding $100 million in damages. She accused Depp of raping her with a bottle while intoxicated. Depp, however, denied ever having used violence against her.

Actress Ellen Barkin, who had a brief “sexual relationship” with Depp in the 1990s, said Depp was jealous, controlling and often drunk. He once threw a bottle of wine in her presence in a Las Vegas hotel room.