Hollywood Vampires
Johnny Depp, Amber Heard, and the Celebrity Exploitation Machine
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An explosive new book on the infamous trial Depp v. Heard, Hollywood Vampires paints an intimate picture of what was really going on behind the viral headlines between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, with never-before-told stories from their inner circle.
Celebrity romances have always captured the public's imagination, playing out like soap operas seized upon by fans and tabloids alike. By the same token, high-profile trials can take over the mainstream media cycle, with both news pundits and the public picking over every detail to predict outcomes and cast their own judgements. Enter the union, dissolution, and hostile legal battle between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard--where these dual obsessions collided, creating a chaotic moment of true cultural fixation.
Hollywood Vampires offers an inside account of one of the most controversial and consequential celebrity scandals of the internet era. Fueled by viral clips, reaction videos, and endless online debates, the trial became more than a legal battle. It became a public spectacle, dividing audiences worldwide.
Kelly Loudenberg and Makiko Wholey were journalists on the ground for the Depp v Heard trial. Having closely followed Johnny, Amber, and their camps, they spent the years leading up to and following the trial interviewing the couple's closest allies as well as their managers, lawyers, agents, business associates, publicists, assistants, and personal staff. The result is a page-turning Hollywood epic full of revealing details that tell a wider tale about the celebrity-industrial complex, modern fandom, inflammatory culture wars, and contemporary feminism.
Turning the lens around, Hollywood Vampires questions how the celebrity exploitation machine, strengthened by the forces of social media and legacy media alike, blurs the lines between fact and fiction, comedy and horror. It forces us to ask ourselves why we take celebrity culture so seriously in the first place--and who wins and who loses when Hollywood becomes the vehicle for our own personal and political causes.
About this Author
Makiko Wholeyis a producer and writer based in Los Angeles.
Reviews
"The highly publicized legal showdown between former spouses Johnny Depp and Amber Heard was contentious and fraught. Loudenberg and Wholey, who covered the trial in real time, aim to offer deeper nuance in Hollywood Vampires. What happened between the two doesn't mesh with the black-and-white dichotomies of abuse our society understands. If it's unclear what future generations will see when they look back on this case and time in history, Loudenberg and Wholey offer a much sharper picture for all." -- Booklist (starred review)
"An investigation of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard's litigious split...Hollywood Vampires was a documentary project before it was a book, and the two have a gift for scene-setting, from their subjects' whirlwind romance on the set of an adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's novel The Rum Diary, to drug-fueled jaunts, to physical violence. It's all unseemly stuff, but the authors go to ground on the mess." -- Kirkus Reviews
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