Actor Johnny Depp signs reported $26.8m deal with luxury brand Dior

PARIS – French luxury brand Dior has renewed its working relationship with American actor Johnny Depp, signing him to a new three-year fragrance contact reportedly worth US$20 million (S$26.8 million).

Entertainment trade Variety reported last Friday that the deal is the biggest men’s fragrance pact ever. It overshadows the US$12 million deal the brand signed with British actor Robert Pattinson to promote the Dior Homme fragrance, and the US$7 million contract for A-list actor Brad Pitt to promote the iconic Chanel No. 5 scent.

Mr Bernard Arnault, chief executive of Dior’s parent company, LVMH, had said in January that Dior Sauvage’s “remarkable success” as a leader in the men’s fragrance market was “driven by the image of Johnny Depp”. 

Depp, 59, has been the brand ambassador for the Dior Sauvage fragrance since 2015, and continued in this role even through

his legal battles with his ex-wife, actress Amber Heard

(Aquaman, 2018).

In 2022, the star of Pirates Of The Caribbean (2003 to 2017) won a contentious defamation trial in a United States court. The jury found that 37-year-old Heard had defamed him when she described herself in a 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post as a “public figure representing domestic abuse”.

Since the trial, Depp has made tentative forays back into the public eye. He

appeared in a fashion show

held by singer Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty lingerie brand and at the MTV Video Music Awards, both in 2022.

And on Tuesday, Depp’s first major film since the trial, Jeanne Du Barry, will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.

The period drama is directed by French actress and film-maker Maiwenn. She also plays the title character, a working-class woman and courtesan who becomes the favourite of King Louis XV of France.

The film will be released in theatres in France on Tuesday, and streaming platform Netflix is expected to stream it in 2025 – but only in France.