I’m sick of seeing Johnny Depp’s face all over London-Kitty Chrisp-Entertainment – Metro

Londoners can’t escape Johnny Depp right now (Picture: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images)

On my commute to work last week, I noticed Johnny Depp’s face blown up on not one, but three bus stop adverts.

The Black Mirror moment was too hair-raising to pass by, so I snapped a photo of the eerie sight.

It was unsettling and I thought London was better than that.

Since I took that photo, I realised that I have been seeing The Pirates of the Caribbean star’s face everywhere. And I hate it.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, Depp is the face of Dior’s Sauvage perfume – and has been since 2015.

The thing is, perfume adverts sell a mood, and an aspirational fantasy for consumers (‘Sauvage’ literally translates to ‘wild’ and ‘savage’ in English) but I don’t think anything about Depp – and especially not his, er, wild side – is aspirational.

This isn’t a call for Depp to be cancelled. There’s always going to be people who support him, regardless of his misogynistic past comments and alleged actions – that’s just the world we live in – and cancelling him would make him a martyr for them.

Three bus stops in a row showed Johnny Depp’s face in all its rugged glory

Depp is still the face of Dior’s Sauvage cologne (Picture: In Pictures via Getty Images)

The problem here is about Dior still pushing him onto the world as a sex symbol – something for women to desire and men to mimic. Even after what has been said about him.

All of this is to say that I am sick to death of seeing Johnny Depp’s Dior-pimped face all over London. Or on TV. Or anywhere, really.

If you’re not in the loop about why Depp being aspirational is problematic, let me give you a rundown.

Over the past few years, he has been embroiled in a highest of high profile legal case with his ex-wife and fellow Hollywood star Amber Heard.

In 2020, Depp sued owners of The Sun (News Group Newspapers Ltd) in the UK over an article that called him a ‘wife beater’. But a high court judge rejected the libel case, ruling that the published material was ‘substantially true’.

Then in 2022, a US jury was asked to determine whether Heard had defamed Depp when she wrote an op-ed article for the Washington Post, in which she referred to herself as a victim of domestic abuse. She did not name Depp, but his legal team argued the piece had harmed his reputation regardless.

Heard counter-sued, and Depp ended up winning the defamation trial and over $10million – although Heard was also awarded $2million, with the jury finding that Depp’s former attorney had defamed her.

What kind of message is this sending to young boys? (Picture: Pictures via Getty Images)

The Depp vs Heard trial showed us that he should not be a role model (Picture: John Phillips/UK Press via Getty Images)

Long story short, their extremely unsexy and down-right disturbing relationship played out on the world stage, with both parties painting the other as a monster.

In one moment, text messages revealed Depp described Heard as a ‘slippery whore’ and he suggested ‘drowning’ and ‘burning’ her. Another text read: ‘I will f**k her burnt corpse afterwards to make sure she is dead.’

How ‘wild’, indeed! Positively masculine. Thank goodness Dior has stuck by the face of savage, wild masculinity in Depp, their poster boy – I mean man! – since 2015.

Thank the heavens people will see Depp as a glamorous ideal, and young boys everywhere might look up while waiting for the 88 en route to school and think how sexy or acceptable it is to speak about women the way Depp has.

Perhaps girls will look up at Depp and see flashes of their partner in his gritty persona, and put it down to them being masculine, rather than rotters.

Whatever you think of the trial, those texts alone should have been enough for Dior to cut ties with Depp. 

Instead, according to Variety, Depp’s image and marketability actually improved dramatically after the trial against Heard, and Dior Sauvage sales soared. Bernard Arnault, CEO of Dior’s parent company LVMH, said the ‘image of Johnny Depp’ was one of the main reasons for its ‘remarkable success’. Shudder. 

But it’s not that Dior are just letting the partnership run its course without stirring the pot: according to Variety, last year they reportedly signed a three-year £20million deal to continue the partnership – so they aren’t severing ties any time soon.

Dior aren’t the only ones sticking by Depp. Now he’s getting seven-minute standing ovations at Cannes for a film he starred in last year called Jeanne du Barry. He’s also set to direct a new film called Modi, which apparently stars Robert DeNiro.

He’s definitely not cancelled. Meanwhile, Amber Heard is reportedly hiding in Spain. 

Just because Depp won his 2022 defamation case, it doesn’t mean he is not without fault. Many horrific moments in the trial showed this.

But it seems Dior and some parts of Hollywood have swept all the bad bits under a rug in their efforts to shoehorn him into a digestible character arc – a wronged bad boy, who isn’t actually that bad. 

Even if Depp never touched a hair on Heard’s head, he still certainly shouldn’t be a role model, which is what Dior are positioning him as via their adverts. A wild, unruly one, yes, but a masculine role model all the same.  

At the end of the day, Depp’s name is now stained with misogyny.

He should no longer be a sex symbol. End of.

In this day and age, we should not be glamorising a certain kind of masculinity. By continuing to plaster Depp’s face across London in Dior ads or on TV, we are sending a message that calling women whores makes you more of a man. 

Given all we’ve heard, there’s nothing sexy anymore about being’ ‘Sauvage’ when you’re Johnny Depp.

Dior should know this, so why can’t I get the bus to work without seeing his face?

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

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