<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Erin Schaff-Pool/Getty ImagesBrett Kavanaugh testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee over sexual-assault allegations made by Christine Blasey Ford.</div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>In a statement released Sunday, a Yale classmate of Brett Kavanaugh's said he was "deeply troubled by what has been a blatant mischaracterization by Brett himself of his drinking at Yale."</li><li>"On many occasions I heard Brett slur his words and saw him staggering from alcohol consumption, not all of which was beer," the Supreme Court nominee's former classmate said. "When Brett got drunk, he was often belligerent and aggressive."</li><li>The FBI has interviewed Deborah Ramirez, a Yale classmate of Kavanaugh's who said he exposed himself to her at a party in the early 1980s. Kavanaugh has denied Ramirez's allegation.</li></ul>A Yale classmate of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's said he was "deeply troubled by what has been a blatant mischaracterization by Brett himself of his drinking at Yale" during Kavanaugh's defense against sexual assault allegations in the media and at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Charles "Chad" Ludington, who now teaches at North Carolina State University, said that he was a friend of Kavanaugh's at Yale and that Kavanaugh was "a frequent drinker, and a heavy drinker.""On many occasions I heard Brett slur his words and saw him staggering from alcohol consumption, not all of which was beer," Ludington said. "When Brett got drunk, he was often belligerent and aggressive." While saying that youthful drinking should not condemn a person for life, Ludington said he was concerned about Kavanaugh's statements under oath before the committee."Brett was a frequent drinker, and a heavy drinker," Luddington, who said he drank with Kavanaugh wrote. "On one of the last occasions I purposely socialized with Brett, I witnessed him respond to a semi-hostile remark, not by defusing the situation, but by throwing his beer in the man's face and starting a fight that ended with one of our mutual friends in jail," Luddington continued.Luddington further attacked one of the key points in Kavanaugh's defense of himself and denial of allegations - that he had never lost memory while drinking."I can unequivocally say that in denying the possibility that he ever blacked out from drinking, and in downplaying the degree and frequency of his drinking, Brett has not told the truth," Luddington wrote. <h2>FBI investigates Kavanaugh</h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Win McNamee/Pool</div></div></div>FBI agents have interviewed one of the three women who have accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct as Republicans and Democrats quarrel over whether the bureau has enough time and freedom to conduct a thorough investigation before a high-stakes vote on his nomination to the nation's highest court.The White House insisted it was not "micromanaging" the new one-week review of Kavanaugh's background, but some Democratic lawmakers claimed the White House was keeping investigators from interviewing certain witnesses. President Donald Trump, for his part, tweeted that no matter how much time and discretion the FBI was given, "it will never be enough" for Democrats trying to keep Kavanaugh off the bench.And even as the FBI explored the past allegations that have surfaced against Kavanaugh, another Yale classmate came forward to accuse the federal appellate judge of being untruthful in his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the extent of his drinking in college.In speaking with FBI agents, Deborah Ramirez detailed her allegation that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party in the early 1980s when they were students at Yale University, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to publicly discuss details of a confidential investigation.Kavanaugh has denied Ramirez's allegation.The person familiar with Ramirez's questioning, who spoke with the Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said she also provided investigators with the names of others who she said could corroborate her account.But Christine Blasey Ford, a California professor who says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers, has not been contacted by the FBI since Trump on Friday ordered the agency to take another look at the nominee's background, according to a member of Ford's team.Kavanaugh has denied assaulting Ford.Speaking to the issue of the scope of the FBI's investigation, the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said the White House counsel, Don McGahn, who is managing Kavanaugh's nomination, "has allowed the Senate to dictate what these terms look like and what the scope of the investigation is.""The White House isn't intervening," Sanders said. "We're not micromanaging this process. It's a Senate process. It has been from the beginning, and we're letting the Senate continue to dictate what the terms look like."The White House counselor, Kellyanne Conway, said the investigation would be "limited in scope" and would "not be a fishing expedition," adding that the FBI was "not tasked to do that."Sen. Jeff Flake, the Arizona Republican who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, requested an investigation last Friday - after he and other Republicans on the panel voted along strict party lines in favor of Kavanaugh's confirmation - as a condition for his subsequent vote to put Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court.Another Republican committee member, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said Sunday that testimony would be taken from Ramirez and Kavanaugh's high-school friend Mark Judge, who has been named by two of three women accusing Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct."I think that will be the scope of it," Graham said. "And that should be the scope of it."Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, called on the White House and the FBI to provide the written directive regarding the investigation's scope. In a letter Sunday, she also asked for updates on any expansion of the original directive.Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said Sunday she was confident in the investigation and "that the FBI will follow up on any leads that result from the interviews." Collins supports the new FBI investigation and is among a few Republican and Democratic senators who have not announced a position on Kavanaugh.Republicans control 51 seats in the closely divided 100-member Senate and cannot afford to lose more than one vote on confirmation.Collins and Flake spoke throughout the weekend.Senate Republicans discussed the contours of the investigation with the White House late Friday, according to a person familiar with the call who was not authorized to discuss it publicly.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had gathered Judiciary Committee Republicans in his office earlier. At that time, the scope of the investigation was requested by Flake, Collins, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, McConnell's spokesman Don Stewart said.Murkowski is not on the committee but also has not announced how she will vote on Kavanaugh's confirmation.Republicans later called the White House to discuss the scope of the investigation, the person said.McConnell's office declined to elaborate Sunday on which allegations would be investigated, reiterating only that it would focus on "current credible allegations." Stewart said the investigation's scope "was set" by the three GOP senators Friday and "has not changed."But Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, a Judiciary Committee member, doubted how credible the investigation would be, given the time limit."That's bad enough, but then to limit the FBI as to the scope and who they're going to question, that - that really - I wanted to use the word farce, but that's not the kind of investigation that all of us are expecting the FBI to conduct," she said.Trump initially opposed such an investigation as allegations began mounting but relented and ordered one on Friday. He later said the FBI had "free rein.""They're going to do whatever they have to do, whatever it is they do - they'll be doing things that we have never even thought of," Trump said Saturday as he departed the White House for a trip to West Virginia. "And hopefully at the conclusion everything will be fine."He revisited the "scope" question later Saturday on Twitter, writing in part, "I want them to interview whoever they deem appropriate, at their discretion."Sanders said Trump, who has vigorously defended Kavanaugh but also raised the slight possibility of withdrawing the nomination should damaging information be found, "will listen to the facts."At least three women have accused Kavanaugh of years-ago misconduct. He denies all the claims.The third woman, Julie Swetnick, accused Kavanaugh and Judge of excessive drinking and inappropriate treatment of women in the early 1980s, among other accusations. Kavanaugh has called her accusations a "joke." Judge has said he "categorically" denies the allegations.Swetnick's attorney, Michael Avenatti, said Saturday that his client had not been contacted by the FBI but was willing to cooperate with investigators.Ford also has said Judge was in the room when a drunken Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her. Judge has said he will cooperate with any law-enforcement agency that will "confidentially investigate" sexual-misconduct allegations against him and Kavanaugh. Judge has also denied misconduct allegations.Sanders spoke on "Fox <keyword id="6355005" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="news">News</keyword> Sunday," Conway appeared on CNN's "State of the Union," and Graham and Hirono were interviewed on ABC's "This Week." <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-have-not-found-aliens-aestivation-hypothesis-gaian-bottleneck-2018-8">3 compelling reasons why we haven't found aliens yet</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

Yale classmate says Kavanaugh's Senate testimony blatantly muddled the truth about his drinking

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Drug dealers are using <keyword id="6358096" type="DEFINITION" weightage="60" keywordseo="snapchat">Snapchat</keyword> and <keyword id="819905" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Instagram">Instagram</keyword> to find customers, despite rules against it.</li><li>Insider found two dozen fentanyl-related deaths in which Snapchat apparently played a role in the transaction.</li><li>Instagram blamed a technical bug for failing to remove dozens of flagged accounts promoting pills.</li></ul>One of the last acts in Devin Norring's short life took place on Snapchat.The 19-year-old in Hastings, Minnesota, connected with a drug dealer on the social-media app last year and arranged to buy a prescription pain pill. But the pill that the dealer delivered was packed with <keyword id="2044449" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="fentanyl">fentanyl</keyword>, an opiate so powerful that Norring died shortly after taking it. The tragedy is part of a painful pattern that has repeated itself over the past year, spread by the immediacy and friction-free ease that teenagers expect in an age of on-demand apps. But, unlike the repercussions of posting an ill-advised video or regrettable comment on Snapchat, the consequences for teens buying pills through social media can be irreversible. In Los Angeles and small-town Minnesota, in famous families and blue-collar ones, a drug 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine is killing people at <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fentanyl-deaths-spreading-across-western-us-after-record-breaking-year">a historic rate during the COVID-19 pandemic</a>. The transactions are sometimes being arranged via social media to home-bound young people. "I would say 80% of the people I know who have lost children to fentanyl poisoning say their child bought the drugs on Snapchat," said Jaime Puerta, whose 16-year-old son, Daniel, died in April 2020 of fentanyl poisoning.Why, the families want to know, can't <keyword id="6355470" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="law">law</keyword> enforcement and social media crack down on blatant public fentanyl sales before more young people die? The answer, experts say, is a devastating combination of counterfeit pills and consumer technology that has "sped up the danger" of young people's drug use - and which has left companies, law enforcement and <keyword id="6354750" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="health">health</keyword> experts scrambling to catch up."These 14- and 15-year-old kids are clueless about what they're doing," Lisa Smittcamp, the district attorney in Fresno, California, told Insider. "That's the danger of the Snapchat drug-delivery thing. The first time they use it, they could die."When Dr. Laura Berman, a famous sex therapist, told the world in February <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2021/02/08/dr-laura-berman-says-son-samuel-16-died-accidental-overdose/4441879001/">that her son had died</a> of fentanyl poisoning after connecting with a dealer on Snapchat, many Americans were stunned by the tragedy. But an Insider investigation has discovered that the story is all too familiar.Insider found two dozen fentanyl deaths in which the dealer used Snapchat to sell drugs, according to court records, news reports, and parents' accounts from 2020 and 2021. And a review by Insider found that Instagram repeatedly failed to take down accounts touting illegal pills for sale after users had flagged them - an oversight that the Facebook-owned company blamed on a bug.Snapchat said it is ramping up efforts to address the fentanyl epidemic on multiple fronts, and Instagram said it will enforce policies banning drug sales.But for many affected families, the social apps make it too easy for teens to buy fentanyl and don't help enough after tragedy strikes. "There are thousands of families like ours," says Bridgette Norring, the Minnesota mom who lost her son Devin last year.<h2>As easy as using the map</h2>Social-media companies have rules forbidding drug sales on their platforms, of course. But that hasn't stopped the practice. A cursory visit to Instagram reveals a glut of accounts extolling the consumption and touting the availability of all manner of pills, including Xanax, Percocet, and OxyContin - and often listing a Snapchat handle for arranging deals. Some accounts post videos of pills in their Snapchat and Instagram stories and use slang for drugs in their usernames. Interested buyers, they indicate, can reach out directly to these accounts through the apps' built-in messaging if they want to arrange transactions.Often, parents and law enforcement told Insider, the Instagram accounts send buyers to Snapchat accounts, where the actual transactions are arranged through the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-use-snapchat">app's disappearing messages</a>. Snapchat's mapping location feature - an especially popular feature among teens - is an ideal tool for buyers and sellers to find each other, social-media experts and law enforcement say. The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-send-location-on-snapchat">user-location map</a>, which users must agree to turn on, makes it a cinch to arrange a rendezvous spot or to have the dealer deliver the drugs straight to a buyer's doorstep, the experts say. Snapchat said it is prioritizing safety, ramping up artificial-intelligence tools to spot pills for sale, blocking usernames and hashtags that include drug terms, empowering community volunteers and family-safety groups, and improving how it works with law enforcement in an effort to address fentanyl and other drugs for sale on its platform. The company urges users to <a href="https://www.snap.com/en-US/safety/safety-reporting">report any illegal activity on its platform</a>."Our deepest sympathies are with the parents and families who have lost loved ones to the terrifying fentanyl epidemic. We are committed to working with law enforcement in all instances where Snapchat is used for illegal purposes," the company said in a written statement provided to Insider."We try to be as proactive as possible in detecting, preventing and eradicating this type of abuse - but we know drug dealers are constantly evolving how they try to evade the rules on many platforms. We are constantly improving our capabilities to fight this illegal activity, including deploying machine learning and proactive detection tools, and to raise awareness about the dangers of drugs in an effort to save lives."Yet for a mother in California whose son died of fentanyl poisoning in September, the process of reporting a dealer on Snapchat to law enforcement felt maddeningly futile. Detectives told her several times they were waiting for Snapchat to respond to a search warrant for information related to their investigation of the dealer. After months Snapchat responded that the search warrant lacked information, and police filed another request last month, she said. Meanwhile, the Snapchat account apparently belonging to the dealer remained active. Snapchat investigated and shut down the account after it was reported by Insider. The mother requested anonymity for safety reasons. Insider knows her identity.In Los Angeles, Jaime Puerta and other parents who lost children to fentanyl gathered outside a federal building in February to urge greater attention to the issue of counterfeit pills killing kids with lethal amounts of fentanyl. "It's wiping out part of a generation so fast, they don't even have time to become addicts," Puerta said. "It's just leveling them."<div type="image" title="Instagram drug posts" height="1042" width="1636" msid="82103554" hostid="261"></div><h2>Instagram cited a 'bug' as the reason pill-pushing accounts aren't suspended</h2>Instagram also struggles to address posts and accounts hawking fentanyl. Over the course of two months, parents and Insider reported 50 accounts posting pictures of prescription pain pills - some with the names of the drugs in the account name - through Instagram's mobile and desktop apps. On 40 of the accounts, comments listed social-media accounts and websites, which law enforcement and social-media experts told Insider are used to sell the drugs.While it did remove eight posts, Instagram did not initially suspend any of the 50 accounts - some with fentanyl, Xanax, and Percocet in their names - reported through its app. In 37 cases, the company responded to the reports that it had reviewed an account or post and found that "it doesn't go against our <a href="https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/instagram-community-guidelines-faqs">Community Guidelines</a>," which prohibit illegal drug sales.In an email, a spokesperson for the company said automated responses dismissing the reports were "due to a bug," or technical error, which had been resolved. Insider submitted 10 reports of accounts posting pills after the company said the bug had been fixed, and six of the 10 accounts were removed. In a statement, the company said: "We prohibit attempts by individuals, manufacturers, and retailers to purchase, sell, or trade non-medical drugs and pharmaceutical drugs for violating our regulated goods policies. We disabled all other accounts linked to the Instagram profiles reported, which violated the same policy." But at press time, 39 of the 50 accounts previously reported by parents and Insider through the app remained online, and the company had not commented about the status of any other drugs-related accounts users had reported before the bug had been fixed. <h2>Fentanyl deaths are skyrocketing</h2>Any delay in addressing the solicitation of illegal drugs on the social platforms could be deadly at a time when counterfeit pills packed with fentanyl are being pumped into the US. It's easier and cheaper to make fake pills using fentanyl - a highly addictive opioid - than to make actual knock-offs of prescription drugs like Percocet or Xanax, DEA agents and prosecutors said. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mexicos-sinaloa-cartel-focusing-on-fentanyl-for-us-drug-market-2021-2">Made recklessly in illegal labs</a>, the fentanyl pills are often far stronger than the buyer realizes. "We are seeing overdoses everywhere," said Benny Ortiz, a 23-year DEA officer who has never seen a drug epidemic move with such deadly speed. "This isn't an upper-class problem, a lower-class problem, or a problem of any ethnic group. It's an American problem."More than 36,000 people died from fentanyl and related synthetic opioids in 2019, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/p1218-overdose-deaths-covid-19.html"> according to the Centers for Disease Control</a>. In the first half of 2020, those numbers were up nationally 38%. In Western states, fentanyl<a href="https://newsroom.uw.edu/postscript/qa-fentanyls-growth-among-overdoses-stunning"> deaths are up 98%</a>. "It's typically one pill," said Lisa Strohman, a clinical psychologist and attorney who works with families and local law enforcement on internet safety issues.<div type="image" title="Dr. Lisa Strohman (2)" height="2811" width="3748" msid="82103557" hostid="261"></div>Counterfeit pills made in Mexico are "flooding the market" with fentanyl that young people are ingesting, believing the pills are Xanax, Percocet, and other milder substances, Strohman says. The fake pills are killing "kids in a pandemic who don't even know what they're getting into," she says. Caleb Banta-Green, the principal research scientist at the Addictions, Drug and Alcohol Institute at the University of Washington School of Medicine, said the combination of social media and fentanyl has "sped up the danger" opioids cause. In the past, becoming an opioid addict took time and effort. "The market for a black, sticky substance like heroin that you have to drive into a bad part of town to buy, then cook and inject with a needle is pretty small," Banta-Green said. "Pills look safer."Buying pills on social media that are stronger than heroin and having them delivered gets naive young people "into trouble quickly," he said. <div type="image" title="Insta Snap drugs" height="1106" width="2294" msid="82103558" hostid="261"></div>"A lot of their drug purchases happen via the internet and Snapchat, not street sales, so they're not getting picked up by police," Banta-Green said<a href="https://newsroom.uw.edu/postscript/qa-fentanyls-growth-among-overdoses-stunning"> in a February interview.</a> Banta-Green found that in the spring of 2017, Washington had 18 fentanyl overdoses. In the spring of 2020, it had 171.<h2>'Dealers are posting pics in the stories for an hour'</h2>One thing everyone agrees on is that chasing fentanyl dealers down on lightning-fast social media with slow-moving subpoenas and law-enforcement paperwork is not an easy task."Dealers are posting pics in the stories for an hour" on Snapchat, Strohman said. "You can't really trace that." Filing search warrants to inspect social-media posts, waiting for access, going through posts, submitting them as evidence, and prosecuting cases can take years. "There's so much paperwork from a legal perspective that they can't catch up." Dealers evade detection by temporarily posting photos of drugs and using emojis and code words rather than mentioning drugs by name. When social-media companies do shut down accounts for dealing drugs, new accounts can go online immediately. "On Snapchat it's so easy to open multiple accounts" that when dealers' accounts are shut down, they can simply pivot to another one. "Snapchat should be held liable," Strohman said. "The platform is so irresponsible." Snapchat's <a href="https://snap.com/en-US/terms">Terms of Service</a> prohibit the creation of multiple accounts, a spokesperson said. Smittcamp, the Fresno district attorney, is already handling several dozens of fentanyl deaths in her Central California city from the first three months of 2021, some with apparent ties to Snapchat. She said law enforcement struggles to prosecute cases of drug-dealing on Snapchat because messages disappear and users can create multiple accounts. "Snapchat may have had good intentions, but they have provided an opportunity for evil," she said.Snapchat said some account information can be retrieved by law enforcement and that it works closely with police when authorities request information in an investigation and discloses information immediately when someone's life or safety are at risk, following legal and privacy guidelines.After a Snapchat message has been opened by all recipients, the content is permanently deleted and unavailable, the company said. A post to a user's story - a message that all of their followers can view - is visible for up to 24 hours, and then is usually permanently deleted. Content that users save can be available for longer. Some parents' organizations give Snapchat credit when it comes to safety. Stephen Balkam, CEO of the nonprofit<a href="https://www.fosi.org/"> Family Online Safety Institute</a>, which receives funding from Snapchat and other social-media platforms, said in some ways Snapchat might be safer than other platforms. "You have to know someone to connect," he said. "It doesn't have a public-facing side like Facebook and others." He said that should be kept in mind when critics fault Snapchat for its disappearing messages, which can make it harder to preserve records.And some healthcare professionals believe social media could also be harnessed to help fight the opioid epidemic. A <a href="https://archives.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/noras-blog/2017/11/mobilizing-citizen-science-to-address-overdose-epidemic">doctor researching opioid abuse at the National Institutes of Health wrote in 2017</a> that Snapchat's map function could potentially be used to prevent overdose deaths by quickly showing the location of an emergency to Snapchat friends nearby.<h2>'We feel lost between law enforcement and social-media platforms'</h2>The nonprofit advocacy group Organization for Social Media Safety is pushing for change at Snapchat and elsewhere. "We will almost certainly be working on legislation," CEO Marc Berkman said. "Snapchat as a platform is really set up to enable this behavior, and dealers are able to operate there. We want to change that."In the meantime, a growing group of parents are meeting one another, united in their grief and demands for action and accountability. Berman, the LA therapist whose son died in February, described a common frustration among families she has been in touch with. "We feel lost between law enforcement and social-media platforms, which are not working together while our children are dying." Snapchat said the company is "actively assisting the Santa Monica Police Department with their investigation, to help track down the perpetrator" in Berman's case. Santa Monica police did not respond to Insider's requests for comment but told the "True Crime Daily" podcast in March that Snapchat has cooperated fully and continues to do so. <div type="image" title="GettyImages 1231366718" height="2554" width="3406" msid="82103560" hostid="261"></div>After Amy Neville's 14-year-old son, Alexander, died of fentanyl poisoning after taking a counterfeit pill, another Southern California mom reached out to her. Her son died the same way, the mom said, and his phone showed their sons appeared to have the same drug dealer, whom they connected with on Snapchat. In saved Snapchat posts reviewed by Insider, a user who is presumably the dealer discussed a third person's fatal overdose, denying he was to blame. "It's infuriating," said Neville, who has worked to help other families since her son died in June. "If our kids were gathering at a skate park where dealers sold them poison drugs, we would shut it down. This is the skate park during COVID. Why do we treat Snapchat any differently?"

Snapchat has become an on-demand delivery app for teens to score illegal drugs. Some kids are dying after taking one pill.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>In November <keyword id="10419" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Johnny-Depp">Johnny Depp</keyword> lost his libel case against a British tabloid that had labeled him a "wife beater" in an article about his ex-wife Amber Heard.</li><li>Christian Dior has kept Depp as the face of its men's fragrance but is not airing ads in conservative markets, a perfume insider said.</li><li>In May, Depp is set to go to trial again in a defamation case against Heard over an op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post suggesting Depp abused her.</li><li>After that verdict, a branding expert said Depp's career would be "over."</li></ul>Last month <a href="https://www.insider.com/fantastic-beasts-johnny-depp-career-is-over">Johnny Depp lost his libel case</a> against the British tabloid The Sun. He forfeited his role in J.K. Rowling's "Fantastic Beasts." And he's turned to Instagram for emotional support from his nearly 9 million followers.But the movie star, in all his ruin, has managed to keep hold of his reported $5 million deal with Christian Dior men's fragrance, Sauvage."The French aren't easily shaken by controversy, like Americans or Brits. They love Johnny and hope this, too, will pass," a beauty marketing consultant, who's worked with Parfums Dior, told Insider."In more conservative markets, they just won't air it. They're waiting this out. That's why there's no official statement. Remember, Dior fired John Galliano as creative director after he went on an anti-Semitic rant in 2011. Now John's reformed and thriving at Margiela, a competing French luxury brand. One good role in a year or two could put Johnny back on top."In a 2018 article in The Sun, which detailed Depp's tumultuous 15-month marriage to the actress Amber Heard, Depp was labeled a "wife beater." He sued the paper, and endured a 16-day trial this July, during which a trove of salacious and disturbing details were revealed regarding Depp's relationship with Heard.Heard, who filed for divorce in 2016, said in court that she "was afraid he was going to kill me." She went on to say that when they fought, Depp would resort to "slapping, kicking, head-butting and choking me, as well as throwing me into things, pulling me by my hair, and shoving me or pushing me to the ground."Depp countered by accusing Heard of leaving human feces in their Los Angeles penthouse bed and throwing a vodka bottle at him, which wound up severing his fingertip to the bone.Still, it's not slowing down sales of Sauvage. The Guardian recently reported that defiant Depp fans have been buying the fragrance to support the star, after Dior aired Depp's ad during the highly rated "The Great British Bake Off.""Dior's sticking a toe in," the beauty marketing consultant said.The ad aired in the US this month, though late at night during commercial breaks for "The Late Late Show With James Corden" and "The Late Show With Steven Colbert.""Dior is feeling a lot of pressure right now to do the right thing and ditch Depp," the British branding expert Jeetendr Sehdev said. "But in today's market, and particularly with millennials, silence is complicit."<h2>'J.K. just couldn't stand up for him anymore'</h2>Depp has always been open about his rock 'n' roll lifestyle. At this summer's trial, he said his drug repertoire started at age 11, and, in a 2018 <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/the-trouble-with-johnny-depp-666010/">Rolling Stone profile</a>, Depp said his daily constant wine consumption has run as much as $30,000 to $50,000 a month.Some Hollywood sources close to Depp are wondering if it's finally gone too far."The last couple years, his bad-boy brand has started to work against him," one major Hollywood studio publicist said. "It was cute even at 45. At 57 it's not. This guilty verdict taints him. The studios are now so terrified of anything related to #MeToo."On November 6, on the heels of the verdict in favor of The Sun, Depp revealed on Instagram that he was forfeiting his role in the third installment of J.K. Rowling's "Fantastic Beasts.""I have been asked to resign by Warner Bros. from my role as Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts and I have respected and agreed to that request," he wrote. "My life and career will not be defined by this moment."<div type="image" title="jk rowling november 2018 " height="2051" width="2735" msid="80013378" hostid="261"></div>"J.K. just couldn't stand up for him anymore," a Warner Bros. casting director told Insider. "She stood by him when Twitter protested his casting in the first movie, after 'wife beater' first came out. His career really rested on her saving him. But as a self-described victim of domestic abuse herself, she couldn't do it."Depp will still get a considerable paycheck from Warner Bros."It's not a total bust," a Warner Bros. studio executive said. "Johnny's still getting $10 to $16 million for one day's work he already shot, because of his pay-or-play contract guarantees he gets paid under any circumstances. Though when it's said and done, he only keeps about $2 million. With Johnny, that's not going to last long."<h2>'He's a guy who thinks the badder he is, the more manly'</h2>Depp started his early career as a musician. He dropped out of high school at 16 and moved to LA with his band, The Kids. One record producer who knew Depp when he first arrived on the Hollywood music scene said he worked "hard to appear cool.""He's a guy who thinks the badder he is, the more manly," the producer said.In 1984 he was introduced to Nicolas Cage, who arranged for Depp to audition for "A Nightmare on Elm Street." In the horror classic, Depp's very first acting role, he played a teenager eaten by his own bed, the first of his many oddball roles. "It set sort of a precedent," the producer said, laughing.Depp's career caught fire quickly. After the late-'80s show "21 Jump Street" turned him into a heartthrob, "Cry-Baby" and Tim Burton's "Edward Scissorhands" in the '90s helped turn him into a bona fide star.He's had his flops, too, including when he portrayed his idol, the gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, in the movie version of Thompson's book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," in 1998."His heroes are all addicts," an indie producer, who knows Depp well, said. "Hunter Thompson, Keith Richards, Warren Zevon."<div type="image" title="American author and journalist Hunter S. Thompson and actor Johnny Depp attend a book party at the Players Club in New York City, 1997." height="2658" width="3544" msid="80013380" hostid="261"></div>Laila Nabulsi, Thompson's ex-girlfriend and the film's producer, said Thompson was the one who came up with the idea to cast Depp after meeting the star.After much stalling, the movie's option was about to run out. Nabulsi called Depp. "Johnny's lawyer didn't want him to do it. His agent didn't want him to do it. Finally I said, 'Johnny, I can't promise you it's going to be easy. I can't promise you'll get paid much. But if you don't do it ... you'll regret it for the rest of your life."He opened his notorious Sunset Strip club, the Viper Room, in 1993. On Halloween of that year, River Phoenix - the older brother of the actor Joaquin Phoenix and the young star of "Stand By Me" and "My Own Private Idaho" - overdosed at the club, dying on the street in front of the Viper Room door.In the Rolling Stone profile, Depp addressed the wild speculation that he gave River the fatal dose himself. "Imagine living with that," Depp told the magazine."Johnny's aware people think he slipped River those drugs that killed him. Which only made Johnny take more drugs, which didn't help his reputation," an old friend of River Phoenix said. "Of course he's always denied it."(Depp's publicist didn't respond to requests for comment.)Insiders say Depp hated the scrutiny that came with fame almost as much as he hated the Hollywood machine itself.When he played Captain Jack Sparrow in Disney's first "Pirates of the Caribbean" in 2003, Depp wasn't afraid to push the boundaries - or piss off some of Hollywood's biggest executives."When some execs came down to watch the test," Depp described at a talk at the 2020 Zurich Film Festival, "it was: 'What's he doing? What is this pirate? Mentally gone? Incredibly drunk? Or gay?' My answer was: 'All my characters are gay.' I didn't hear anything after that.""Johnny has always been nervy, demanding, more than most stars," the indie producer said, recalling that an accountant on one of Depp's movies nearly lost her job in 2012 when the star demanded the studio hire personal security at a New York hotel, devouring a budget that didn't exist."Later on he started being late for things," a Disney exec, who worked on a number of Depp's projects starting about 1990, said."Shoots, interviews. He never hid his partying. But he finally hit the wall on 'Murder on the Orient Express.' Right when rehearsals began, in 2017, he walked in late the first day and Ken Branagh, who directed, very calmly said: 'That's not the way I work. I don't allow lateness. If you choose that behavior, you can leave the film. Right now. It's fine,'" the Disney exec said."Johnny just said, 'I hear you, sir, I won't do it again.' It humiliated him in front of stars, as big as he was."<h2>'He bit the hand that fed him'</h2>It seemed Depp might have found some stability when he met Heard, his costar in 2011's "Rum Diary." By 2014 the couple were engaged. Heard became his second wife the following year.But the relationship was tumultuous from the start. When filing for divorce, in 2016, Heard got a temporary restraining order, claiming she'd suffered physical abuse when Depp was drunk or on drugs.<div type="image" title="Amber Heard and Johnny Depp" height="2996" width="4007" msid="80013387" hostid="261"></div>The year after his divorce, Depp fired his United Talent Agency agent of three decades, Tracey Jacobs, the only person who could ever rein him in, the Disney employee said."When careers start to go down the tubes," one UTA agent said, "what do they do? They fire their agents. He bit the hand that fed him.""It was a very big blow," the UTA agent said. "Tracey 'got' him. She understood the bad-boy thing. She liked the rock world, dated rock stars. She got him cult films, then steered his career toward big money. Disney was less afraid to cast him in 'Pirates' because they trusted her."The agent said it was a "huge mistake to fire her" because CAA, Depp's new agency, "just does not know how to handle him."When reached for comment, Jacobs told Insider: "I represented Johnny for 30 years and we had tremendous success together. I am truly grateful for that."But those 30 years of box-office success threatened to go up in smoke during this summer's London trial, which exposed accusations of at least 14 physical altercations between Depp and Heard.They included Heard's accusations that Depp dangled her teacup terrier out of a moving car, and that he got so high he fell asleep with melting ice cream on his lap. Depp accused Heard of chopping up lines of cocaine, drinking two or three bottles of wine a night, and having affairs with James Franco and Elon Musk. Depp said he painted messages in blood on a mirror after accusing Heard of severing his finger.Why did Depp take the plunge of suing the contentious British tabloid over defamation in 2018 when it was always an uphill battle?"He never should have gone to court," an LA <keyword id="4578" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="entertainment">entertainment</keyword> lawyer who represents A-list actors and directors said. "There's no way he could win. Not with Depp's history of drugs and alcohol. It's bad enough being accused as wife beater - it's worse for the verdict to essentially confirm it."<h2>'He could make movies outside of America, but how's that working out for Woody Allen?'</h2>It doesn't mean everyone in Hollywood has turned their back on him."I watched him dress up as Captain Jack and visit kids in hospitals," the Disney exec said. "He has a good heart. That's what gets him in trouble sometimes, his vulnerability."Depp is trying to rally support, posting on Instagram directly to fans asking for support. In one post, Depp performs a song he wrote with his friend Jeff Beck called "Isolation."As part of his "Fantastic Beasts" resignation, Depp said he was determined to clear his name."The surreal judgment of the court in the U.K. will not change my fight to tell the truth," he wrote, "and I confirm that I plan to appeal. My resolve remains strong and I intend to prove the allegations against me are false."But before that can even happen, Depp faces another court case, a defamation case aimed directly at Heard over a 2018 op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post. Depp suggested that Heard alleged in that piece that he'd abused her. The trial commences in Virginia in May."After that ruling, I'd say his brand is over," Sehdev said.<div type="image" title="Johnny Depp" height="3757" width="5009" msid="80013394" hostid="261"></div>"Generations have moved on, everything's changed," the UTA agent told Insider. "Let's say Johnny does a Netflix film, makes $5 million. He winds up with $2 million. I don't know his budget these days, but what would it get him? Would Donna Langley, chairwoman of Universal Pictures, cast him - and in what? He could make movies outside of America, but how's that working out for Woody Allen? My bet is he'll keep tampering with music. Wild rock dudes are allowed any behavior. Audiences expect it."But it might be his old friend and mentor Tim Burton who revives Depp's stalled, or suddenly stillborn, career. Rumor has it Burton will finally make "Beetlejuice 2," with a juicy role for Depp, perhaps even the title role."If he manages to get one more good part, he could ostensibly come back," the indie producer Orian Williams said. "I would consider hiring him for the right role. You can question a lot, but you can't ever question his talent."

Insiders say Johnny Depp may never work in Hollywood again after losing 'wife beater' libel suit

<ul class="summary-list"><li>In November <keyword id="10419" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Johnny-Depp">Johnny Depp</keyword> lost his libel case against a British tabloid that had labeled him a "wife beater" in an article about his ex-wife <keyword id="573399" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Amber-Heard">Amber Heard</keyword>.</li><li>Christian Dior has kept Depp as the face of its men's fragrance but is not airing ads in conservative markets, a perfume insider said.</li><li>In May, Depp is set to go to trial again in a defamation case against Heard over an op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post suggesting Depp abused her.</li><li>After that verdict, a branding expert said Depp's career would be "over."</li></ul>Last month Johnny Depp lost his libel case against the British tabloid The Sun. He forfeited his role in J.K. Rowling's "Fantastic Beasts." And he's turned to Instagram for emotional support from his nearly 9 million followers.But the movie star, in all his ruin, has managed to keep hold of his reported $5 million deal with Christian Dior men's fragrance, Sauvage."The French aren't easily shaken by controversy, like Americans or Brits. They love Johnny and hope this, too, will pass," a beauty marketing consultant, who's worked with Parfums Dior, told Insider."In more conservative markets, they just won't air it. They're waiting this out. That's why there's no official statement. Remember, Dior fired John Galliano as creative director after he went on an anti-Semitic rant in 2011. Now John's reformed and thriving at Margiela, a competing French luxury brand. One good role in a year or two could put Johnny back on top."In a 2018 article in The Sun, which detailed Depp's tumultuous 15-month marriage to the actress Amber Heard, Depp was labeled a "wife beater." He sued the paper, and endured a 16-day trial this July, during which a trove of salacious and disturbing details were revealed regarding Depp's relationship with Heard.Heard, who filed for divorce in 2016, said in court that she "was afraid he was going to kill me." She went on to say that when they fought, Depp would resort to "slapping, kicking, head-butting and choking me, as well as throwing me into things, pulling me by my hair, and shoving me or pushing me to the ground."Depp countered by accusing Heard of leaving human feces in their Los Angeles penthouse bed and throwing a vodka bottle at him, which wound up severing his fingertip to the bone.Still, it's not slowing down sales of Sauvage. The Guardian recently reported that defiant Depp fans have been buying the fragrance to support the star, after Dior aired Depp's ad during the highly rated "The Great British Bake Off.""Dior's sticking a toe in," the beauty marketing consultant said.The ad aired in the US this month, though late at night during commercial breaks for "The Late Late Show With James Corden" and "The Late Show With Steven Colbert.""Dior is feeling a lot of pressure right now to do the right thing and ditch Depp," the British branding expert Jeetendr Sehdev said. "But in today's market, and particularly with millennials, silence is complicit."<h2>'J.K. just couldn't stand up for him anymore'</h2>Depp has always been open about his rock 'n' roll lifestyle. At this summer's trial, he said his drug repertoire started at age 11, and, in a 2018 <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/the-trouble-with-johnny-depp-666010/">Rolling Stone profile</a>, Depp said his daily constant wine consumption has run as much as $30,000 to $50,000 a month.Some <keyword id="2370" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="hollywood">Hollywood</keyword> sources close to Depp are wondering if it's finally gone too far."The last couple years, his bad-boy brand has started to work against him," one major Hollywood studio publicist said. "It was cute even at 45. At 57 it's not. This guilty verdict taints him. The studios are now so terrified of anything related to #MeToo."On November 6, on the heels of the verdict in favor of The Sun, Depp revealed on Instagram that he was forfeiting his role in the third installment of J.K. Rowling's "Fantastic Beasts.""I have been asked to resign by Warner Bros. from my role as Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts and I have respected and agreed to that request," he wrote. "My life and career will not be defined by this moment."<div type="image" title="jk rowling november 2018 " height="2051" width="2735" msid="79872467" hostid="261"></div>"J.K. just couldn't stand up for him anymore," a Warner Bros. casting director told Insider. "She stood by him when Twitter protested his casting in the first movie, after 'wife beater' first came out. His career really rested on her saving him. But as a self-described victim of domestic abuse herself, she couldn't do it."Depp will still get a considerable paycheck from Warner Bros."It's not a total bust," a Warner Bros. studio executive said. "Johnny's still getting $10 to $16 million for one day's work he already shot, because of his pay-or-play contract guarantees he gets paid under any circumstances. Though when it's said and done, he only keeps about $2 million. With Johnny, that's not going to last long."<h2>'He's a guy who thinks the badder he is, the more manly'</h2>Depp started his early career as a musician. He dropped out of high school at 16 and moved to LA with his band, The Kids. One record producer who knew Depp when he first arrived on the Hollywood music scene said he worked "hard to appear cool.""He's a guy who thinks the badder he is, the more manly," the producer said.In 1984 he was introduced to Nicolas Cage, who arranged for Depp to audition for "A Nightmare on Elm Street." In the horror classic, Depp's very first acting role, he played a teenager eaten by his own bed, the first of his many oddball roles. "It set sort of a precedent," the producer said, laughing.Depp's career caught fire quickly. After the late-'80s show "21 Jump Street" turned him into a heartthrob, "Cry-Baby" and Tim Burton's "Edward Scissorhands" in the '90s helped turn him into a bona fide star.He's had his flops, too, including when he portrayed his idol, the gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, in the movie version of Thompson's book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," in 1998."His heroes are all addicts," an indie producer, who knows Depp well, said. "Hunter Thompson, Keith Richards, Warren Zevon."<div type="image" title="American author and journalist Hunter S. Thompson and actor Johnny Depp attend a book party at the Players Club in New York City, 1997." height="2658" width="3544" msid="79872469" hostid="261"></div>Laila Nabulsi, Thompson's ex-girlfriend and the film's producer, said Thompson was the one who came up with the idea to cast Depp after meeting the star.After much stalling, the movie's option was about to run out. Nabulsi called Depp. "Johnny's lawyer didn't want him to do it. His agent didn't want him to do it. Finally I said, 'Johnny, I can't promise you it's going to be easy. I can't promise you'll get paid much. But if you don't do it ... you'll regret it for the rest of your life."He opened his notorious Sunset Strip club, the Viper Room, in 1993. On Halloween of that year, River Phoenix - the older brother of the actor Joaquin Phoenix and the young star of "Stand By Me" and "My Own Private Idaho" - overdosed at the club, dying on the street in front of the Viper Room door.In the Rolling Stone profile, Depp addressed the wild speculation that he gave River the fatal dose himself. "Imagine living with that," Depp told the magazine."Johnny's aware people think he slipped River those drugs that killed him. Which only made Johnny take more drugs, which didn't help his reputation," an old friend of River Phoenix said. "Of course he's always denied it."(Depp's publicist didn't respond to requests for comment.)Insiders say Depp hated the scrutiny that came with fame almost as much as he hated the Hollywood machine itself.When he played Captain Jack Sparrow in Disney's first "Pirates of the Caribbean" in 2003, Depp wasn't afraid to push the boundaries - or piss off some of Hollywood's biggest executives."When some execs came down to watch the test," Depp described at a talk at the 2020 Zurich Film Festival, "it was: 'What's he doing? What is this pirate? Mentally gone? Incredibly drunk? Or gay?' My answer was: 'All my characters are gay.' I didn't hear anything after that.""Johnny has always been nervy, demanding, more than most stars," the indie producer said, recalling that an accountant on one of Depp's movies nearly lost her job in 2012 when the star demanded the studio hire personal security at a New York hotel, devouring a budget that didn't exist."Later on he started being late for things," a Disney exec, who worked on a number of Depp's projects starting about 1990, said."Shoots, interviews. He never hid his partying. But he finally hit the wall on 'Murder on the Orient Express.' Right when rehearsals began, in 2017, he walked in late the first day and Ken Branagh, who directed, very calmly said: 'That's not the way I work. I don't allow lateness. If you choose that behavior, you can leave the film. Right now. It's fine,'" the Disney exec said."Johnny just said, 'I hear you, sir, I won't do it again.' It humiliated him in front of stars, as big as he was."<h2>'He bit the hand that fed him'</h2>It seemed Depp might have found some stability when he met Heard, his costar in 2011's "Rum Diary." By 2014 the couple were engaged. Heard became his second wife the following year.But the relationship was tumultuous from the start. When filing for divorce, in 2016, Heard got a temporary restraining order, claiming she'd suffered physical abuse when Depp was drunk or on drugs.<div type="image" title="Amber Heard and Johnny Depp" height="2996" width="4007" msid="79872472" hostid="261"></div>The year after his divorce, Depp fired his United Talent Agency agent of three decades, Tracey Jacobs, the only person who could ever rein him in, the Disney employee said."When careers start to go down the tubes," one UTA agent said, "what do they do? They fire their agents. He bit the hand that fed him.""It was a very big blow," the UTA agent said. "Tracey 'got' him. She understood the bad-boy thing. She liked the rock world, dated rock stars. She got him cult films, then steered his career toward big money. Disney was less afraid to cast him in 'Pirates' because they trusted her."The agent said it was a "huge mistake to fire her" because CAA, Depp's new agency, "just does not know how to handle him."When reached for comment, Jacobs told Insider: "I represented Johnny for 30 years and we had tremendous success together. I am truly grateful for that."But those 30 years of box-office success threatened to go up in smoke during this summer's London trial, which exposed accusations of at least 14 physical altercations between Depp and Heard.They included Heard's accusations that Depp dangled her teacup terrier out of a moving car, and that he got so high he fell asleep with melting ice cream on his lap. Depp accused Heard of chopping up lines of cocaine, drinking two or three bottles of wine a night, and having affairs with James Franco and Elon Musk. Depp said he painted messages in blood on a mirror after accusing Heard of severing his finger.Why did Depp take the plunge of suing the contentious British tabloid over defamation in 2018 when it was always an uphill battle?"He never should have gone to court," an LA entertainment lawyer who represents A-list actors and directors said. "There's no way he could win. Not with Depp's history of drugs and alcohol. It's bad enough being accused as wife beater - it's worse for the verdict to essentially confirm it."<h2>'He could make movies outside of America, but how's that working out for Woody Allen?'</h2>It doesn't mean everyone in Hollywood has turned their back on him."I watched him dress up as Captain Jack and visit kids in hospitals," the Disney exec said. "He has a good heart. That's what gets him in trouble sometimes, his vulnerability."Depp is trying to rally support, posting on Instagram directly to fans asking for support. In one post, Depp performs a song he wrote with his friend Jeff Beck called "Isolation."As part of his "Fantastic Beasts" resignation, Depp said he was determined to clear his name."The surreal judgment of the court in the U.K. will not change my fight to tell the truth," he wrote, "and I confirm that I plan to appeal. My resolve remains strong and I intend to prove the allegations against me are false."But before that can even happen, Depp faces another court case, a defamation case aimed directly at Heard over a 2018 op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post. Depp suggested that Heard alleged in that piece that he'd abused her. The trial commences in Virginia in May."After that ruling, I'd say his brand is over," Sehdev said.<div type="image" title="Johnny Depp" height="3757" width="5009" msid="79872474" hostid="261"></div>"Generations have moved on, everything's changed," the UTA agent told Insider. "Let's say Johnny does a Netflix film, makes $5 million. He winds up with $2 million. I don't know his budget these days, but what would it get him? Would Donna Langley, chairwoman of Universal Pictures, cast him - and in what? He could make movies outside of America, but how's that working out for Woody Allen? My bet is he'll keep tampering with music. Wild rock dudes are allowed any behavior. Audiences expect it."But it might be his old friend and mentor Tim Burton who revives Depp's stalled, or suddenly stillborn, career. Rumor has it Burton will finally make "Beetlejuice 2," with a juicy role for Depp, perhaps even the title role."If he manages to get one more good part, he could ostensibly come back," the indie producer Orian Williams said. "I would consider hiring him for the right role. You can question a lot, but you can't ever question his talent."

Is this the end for Johnny Depp? Christian Dior is still paying the embattled actor millions, but insiders say it will take a miracle, or a new Tim Burton movie, for him to work in Hollywood again.

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>"I like to say that real men drink pink," says Thomas Pastuszak, wine director of the swanky <a href="https://www.thenomadhotel.com/" target="_blank">NoMad Hotel</a> in Manhattan."There used to be this perception that rosé was a girly drink, but that's just not true."As Procrustean gender norms fall into the dustbin of history, more menfolk are succumbing to the charms of the Pink Mistress, blithely knocking back rosés ranging in color from onionskin to rare steak.Like his counterpart, the much-discussed <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/12/29/371652827/ladies-lead-whiskey-renaissance-as-distillers-and-new-tipplers" target="_blank">female whiskey drinker</a>, the rosé bro is inaugurating a freer, more egalitarian world of gender-fluid beverage consumption.<div id="entry-more">On the job, it's not rare for Pastuszak to spot gentlemen in their twenties and thirties imbibing rosé with impunity. "It used to be that a guy would maybe order a glass of rosé on a date. The woman would order a glass, and then he might say, 'I'll have rosé too.' But now I'm seeing groups of men ordering it."Over in Brooklyn, Rustun Nichols, bar director of the upmarket fauxhemian citadel the <a href="http://wythehotel.com/" target="_blank">Wythe Hotel</a>, has noticed similar phenomena: "You go to a table where people are sitting outside and they're like, 'I'll take a magnum of Bedell,' and maybe it's seven dudes and you're a little surprised. You thought you were going to be talking to them about scotch, but they want some Provence rosé, and that's totally cool."Believed to be the oldest style of wine in the world, rosé is traditionally dry and crisp and hails originally from the Provence region of France. But in the United States, the pink wine hasn't always garnered respect from oenophiles. "Historically," Pastuszak says, "there was a perception in American culture that rosé was a sweet, low-alcohol wine associated with the White Zinfandel coming out of California." By the seventies, rosé was seen by serious wine drinkers as cloying, mass-produced swill, an object of revulsion and gendered disdain. But as more complex rosés are coming out of the barrel, the conversation around rosé is changing. The once-dismissed and feminized pink drink is now getting guzzled by winos regardless of gender.No longer burdened by the cheap albatross of White Zinfandel, the New Rosé is a finding a hospitable environment in the 21st-century, metroflexible landscape. "I think a lot of stigmas about drinking rosé are definitely gone-I think [that's the case] about beverages across the board," says Nichols, who describes the archetypal male rosé drinker as guy in his mid-thirties who, in his teens, "was probably in a hard-core band that I loved and is now in some electro-clash band . . . and [has] two kids and collects records."Of course, aging hipsters aren't the only ones pounding pink.Vince Blais, 26, an e-commerce merch planner, didn't much care for rosé when he spent the summer in France as a teenager. "I didn't get back to it until a couple of years ago," he explains, "when I moved to New York City and discovered that it had become huge here." Now Blais keeps his fridge stocked with From the Tank, a blend of 80 percent Grenache and 20 percent Syrah he describes as "boxed, but excellent.""I would say that I've noticed an increase in the popularity of rosé over the past two years," says James Gold, 25, who works in fine-art logistics and imbibes blush on the regular with his two male roommates. "Before that, people would drink it, but it was often the butt of jokes, and I wouldn't really consider picking up a bottle at the store. I would definitely not feel self-conscious ordering it or drinking it now."When it comes to beverage choices, financial journalist Felix Salmon, 43, is unfazed by passé gender norms. "Have I ever felt self-conscious about ordering rosé? Hell, no!" he says. "I've always drunk wine, and I guess that once I started realizing that the purpose of wine isn't to be really big and heavy and red and tannic and that you could actually really enjoy light wines was when I discovered rosé. This whole idea of rosé being a woman thing literally never occurred to me." The same goes for attorney and self-described "equal-opportunity rosé drinker" Jeffrey Whyte, 46, who never thought twice about partaking of the pink. "I've been drinking it as long as I have been drinking wine as an adult," he says.Stigma or no, more people are drinking rosé, and men are undoubtedly a part of the trend. According to a January 2015 Nielsen report, US retail sales of premium imported rosé wines (those priced at or above $12 a bottle) grew by 41 percent on volume and 53 percent on value in 2014. This is compared to growth rates of 1.0 percent on volume and 3.3 percent on value for the total table-wine market."We've definitely seen an increase in conversations about rosé-it's in a growth phase," says Paul Mabray, rosé enthusiast and CEO of <a href="http://www.vintank.com/" target="_blank">VinTank</a>, the world's largest software company for wineries. VinTank monitors and analyzes about 2.5 million wine-related social-media conversations per day. Mabray cites the release of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's rosé, <a href="http://miraval-provence.com/" target="_blank">Chateau Miraval</a>, in 2012 as the breakthrough moment of brosé culture."When certain wines enter the broader consciousness, there's usually a catalyst for it. With Pinot Noir, for example, you have the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS9ocP6FNvM" target="_blank">Sideways</a> effect," he says, referring to the Dionysian bromantic comedy of 2004. There's an "aspirational aspect," he says, to the appeal of Pitt and Jolie's award-winning salmon-colored sauce: "The fact that a man is part of that probably doesn't hurt in the gender transcendence as well."For the notoriously indecisive millennial generation, rosé offers something even more valuable than aspiration-the luxury of non-choice: "It's the best of both worlds," says actor Sam Daly, 31. "It combines the light, crisp, and refreshing nature of white wine with the bold, daring complexity of red wine.""Rosé is kind of like online dating," Daly says. "What was once a faux pas has become the norm. It's totally become universally accepted among men and women. It's kind of like the beer of wine." Daly even has a buddy who wants to open up a rosé bar, which, he thinks, "would be perfect in Venice or Brooklyn." When Daly and his fiancé get married later this summer, the couple will be drinking <a target="_blank">Whispering Angel</a>, their favorite rosé, at the wedding. "There's something kind of decadent about drinking rosé," he says. "Like, champagne is great, but it can give you a wicked hangover."</div> <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/order-wine-expensive-restaurant-2014-9">Here's How To Order Wine In A Restaurant Without Paying Through The Nose</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="4zamFkcDrK5AIeYom4innxVbMycsokgp" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

You Searched For "alcohol consumption by teenagers" and got 6 results

Yale classmate says Kavanaugh's Senate testimony blatantly muddled the truth about his drinking

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Snapchat has become an on-demand delivery app for teens to score illegal drugs. Some kids are dying after taking one pill.

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Insiders say Johnny Depp may never work in Hollywood again after losing 'wife beater' libel suit

Merle Ginsberg

Is this the end for Johnny Depp? Christian Dior is still paying the embattled actor millions, but insiders say it will take a miracle, or a new Tim Burton movie, for him to work in Hollywood again.

Merle Ginsberg

Guys are no longer ashamed to down a bottle of rose with their bros

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The Mind-Blowing Science Of Sleep

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