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Google PlayOver 3 million people have signed a petition calling for the removal of Amber Heard from Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, People reports
The petition aimed at DC and Warner Bros. was launched in 2020, per People, and has seen an increase in interest amid Johnny Depp’s defamation case against the actress over her 2018 Washington Post op-ed, in which she claimed she said she was a victim of domestic abuse. While Depp was not mentioned by name in the article, he claims it did damage to his career and is now seeking $50 million from his ex-wife.
Heard, who is set to reprise the role of Mera in the film’s sequel, has “systematically crusaded to ruin Depp in Hollywood, repeating multiple accounts of fake incidents in which she had actually abused Johnny Depp, but lied and created false accounts of him being the abuser,” per the petition. During the trial, Heard has been accused of cutting Depp’s finger with a glass bottle. She, too, has accused Depp of violence, as well as sexual assault, which his team has denied.
“You will hear in the most graphic and horrifying terms about the [sexual] violence that she suffered,” her attorney, Ben Rottenborn, said at the beginning of the case. “You’ll hear that straight from her.”
Heard is expected to take the stand in court on Wednesday. On Monday, Depp’s agent, Jack Whigham, testified that Heard’s op-ed did “catastrophic” damage to the actor’s career, and that he was expected to have earned $22.5 million if he starred in the sixth Pirates of the Caribbean film. Disney, however, opted to go in a “different direction,” Whigham claims.
“It was a first-person account coming from the victim,” the agent said of Heard’s allegations. “It became a death-knell catastrophic thing for Mr. Depp in the Hollywood community.”
The next Aquaman film is set to be released on March 17, 2023, and will feature direction from James Wan, with Heard reprising her role alongside Jason Momoa.
