Who is Tina Newman? Disney Executive claims Amber Heard's Op-Ed did not affect Johnny Depp's Pirates of the Caribbean role

A Disney executive named Tina Newman testified against Johnny Depp in Virginia's Fairfax court, stating that Heard's op-ed article, which she wrote in 2018, did not affect his role in Pirates of the Caribbean.

On May 19, in a pre-recorded deposition presented in the court, Newman, who is engaged with the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, revealed that she never saw any official documentation within the production company that referred to Amber Heard's op-ed.

She also said that she had never discussed it and had never heard of or participated in discussions about its impact.

When asked if Depp will act in the next Pirates film, Newman said:

"I don't know, that decision doesn't fall within my job responsibilities. It's above my pay grade. I know it’s in development, nothing more."

On February 11, 2022, Newman was deposed and testified on behalf of Disney. In court, her taped deposition was played.

In 2003, Johnny Depp made his movie debut as Captain Jack Sparrow in The Curse of the Black Pearl, the first Pirates film. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for his work in the movie. The series went on to have four additional sequels, the most recent of which being Dead Men Tell No Tales, which premiered in 2017.

After Heard's 2018 WaPo article, Disney dropped Depp from the Pirates franchise. Many media publications, including WaPo, claimed that the company's decision came four days after the op-ed was published.

---

Johnny Depp's former agent expressed issues with the actor

Tracey Jacobs, Depp's longtime agent, previously testified in court that the actor was a "difficult" client with "fundamental anger issues," which garnered several complaints from film crews on "virtually every movie" he worked on.

Jacobs worked at the United Talent Agency and was Depp's representative for three decades until he parted ways with him in October 2016.

In a pre-recorded deposition played in a Virginia court on May 19, Jacobs said that Depp became "the biggest star in the world" during their collaboration.

Jacobs claimed she did not consider him a "difficult client" at first. But over her last ten years of representing him, things changed substantially. She said:

“[His] unprofessional behavior … became far more complicated."

According to the court, Jacobs was compelled to go to Australia twice while Johnny Depp was working on Pirates of the Caribbean 5 to "talk to" him in response to production crew complaints about his behavior.

She also admitted that Depp "consistently showed up late" to "virtually every movie" he worked on, which she blamed on his purported increasing use of booze and drugs. She said:

“I said to him, ‘you’ve got to stop doing this, this is hurting you’, and it did. Initially, crews loved him because he was always so great with the crew. But crews don’t love sitting around for hours and hours waiting for the star to show up. Word got around. It made people reluctant to use him toward the end.”

Jacobs testified in court that Johnny Depp had "fundamental issues with anger" that deteriorated over time, but she never witnessed him beat a woman.

She also said that the actor "demanded" – not lent – $20 million from the agency on one occasion, claiming he deserved it because of the money he'd made them over the years.

As his drug and alcohol misuse worsened, she claimed he "terminated essentially everyone in his life," including Jacobs.

Johnny Depp is suing his ex-wife Amber Heard for an op-ed article she wrote for the Washington Post in 2018, where she talked about being a victim of domestic violence. Although she didn't directly name Depp in the article, his lawyers argue that the piece damaged the star's professional career.