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8 year oldHe looks like hell, his film career is on the skids, and now his beautiful young wife, Amber Heard, has cocked her flintlock and hoisted the Jolly Roger — keen on doubloons.
Things are looking grim for Captain Jack Sparrow.
“Pirates of the Caribbean” star Johnny Depp has kept up a brave front since Friday afternoon, when Heard accused him in a Los Angeles court filing of being drunk, high, paranoid and violent throughout their 15-month marriage.
Hours after the filing — with Heard still sporting a bruise she claims was caused by Depp flinging an iPhone at her face — the disheveled star puffed on a cigarillo and strummed a guitar as he headlined a music festival 6,000 miles away, in Portugal.
But even the pretty Portuguese groupies — who waved placards reading, “Johnny My Heart is Beating for You,” as bandmate Alice Cooper thumbed through covers of The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix — couldn’t reverse Depp’s run of miserable fortune.
Earlier Friday, Depp’s new movie, “Alice Through the Looking Glass,” in which he plays the Mad Hatter, opened — and promptly bombed.
The movie earned just $9.7 million — along with a measly 28 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The film’s 2010 prequel had done far better, taking in $40.8 million on opening day.
But “Alice” would be the least of his recent troubles, which began tragically with the death of his mother, Betty Sue Palmer, 81, on May 20 after a long illness.
The day after her death, Depp visited Heard at their penthouse in LA — the first time they’d seen each other in a month, Heard would concede in court papers.
Depp was drunk and high, and became “increasingly enraged” and “paranoid,” screaming profanities and flinging Heard’s iPhone into her face, she alleges.
Depp was “driven insane” by his suspicion that his openly bisexual wife was having an affair with model Cara Delevingne, the London Sun reported.
Two days after the alleged phone-fling, on Monday — the same day Depp would walk the red carpet for the Hollywood premiere of “Alice” — she filed for divorce.
Under California law, Heard is entitled to 50 percent of the household income f-rom their marriage, but Heard wants much more.
She’s demanding Depp’s Range Rover, $50,000-a-month support, $125,000 toward legal fees and possession of the combined three-unit penthouse in downtown LA — scene of the alleged iPhone fling.
The day after divorce papers were filed, Heard’s lawyer, Samantha Spector, doubled down, writing to Depp’s lawyers that if he didn’t agree to a “private and amicable resolution to all matters,” there would be no guarantee of avoiding a media spotlight.
‘If she keeps talking, his reputation is going to be mud, and he’ll start losing his female fan base.’
- Suzanne Bracker, New York divorce lawyer
“Although Johnny is extremely wealthy, he refuses to provide me with any direct support,” she complains in her papers, citing her 2015 earnings at a “mere” $260,000 — minus $208,000 in expenses.
When Depp’s lawyers called their bluff by stating “Amber is attempting to secure a premature financial resolution by alleging abuse,” Heard went public.
“Honey, you know she’s jonesing for the real money, and she has him by the movie-star balls,” New York divorce lawyer Suzanne Bracker told The Post on Saturday.
“If she keeps talking, his reputation is going to be mud, and he’ll start losing his female fan base,” said Bracker, who has repped the baby mamas of Sean Combs, Ice-T, Damon Dash and L.A. Reid.
“She’s looking for ‘shut-up’ money, which is a premium. He’s going to have to pay her to shut up.”
Team Depp is already counter-spinning — with his ex-wife f-rom the early ’80s, Lori Anne Allison, telling TMZ on Saturday that the star is a nonviolent “soft person” who never even raised his voice.
If Heard is indeed in fear of Depp, she did the right thing to get a protective order, noted Adria Hillman, a New York divorce lawyer whose clients have included Ronald Perelman.
Still, Heard may have done better to keep her abuse allegations closer to the vest for now, she said — as a bargaining chip.
“The threat of this kind of exposure is much worse than the exposure itself.”
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