Johnny Depp and Amber Heard are popular for the wrong reasons
(Picture: Jonathan Brady/PA)Artists, royalty, and tech billionaires grace this year’s list of the most searched celebrities on Google.
At the top of the 2022 list is actress Amber Heard, who was plastered across headlines in the midst of her domestic-violence lawsuit with Johnny Depp.
And the 59-year-old Pirates of the Caribbean star followed closely behind in second place, according to Celeb Tattler, which analysed the data points on Google trends of 150 celebrities.
The late monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, was in third place, with a high-ranking 4.3 million searches, which is unsurprising as the spotlight was on the royalty for both her Platinum Jubilee celebrations and her death in September 2022.
NFL’s Tom Brady’s short-lived retirement put him to fourth place with four million clicks. In the midst of a divorce from his wife Gisele Bündchen and a return to the field after just 40 days in retirement, the sports star told Buzzfeed News he had “no regrets”.
A growing figure in the public eye has been comedian and SNL star Pete Davidson. With a long list of celebrity partners attached to his thriving romantic notoriety, Davidson took the sixth spot – exceeded by his girlfriend of nine months Kim Kardashian, a regular person of interest.
The Kardashian middle child took 3.5 million searches to reach the fifth spot – which may be partially owed to the pair’s break up in August this year, as well as the strife with ex Kanye.
The now-owner of Twitter Elon Musk also caught press attention this year for several scandals, including dropping out of his Twitter buyout before rejoining the deal. Musk took seventh place in the rankings, with 3.19 million searches.
Following on were Will Smith in eighth place, Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown in ninth, and Zendaya skimming the list at tenth.
But some celebrities in major scandals and stories this year were missing from the top 10. The celebrity gossip site confirmed that Harry Styles, who was at the centre of behind-the-scenes drama of the film Don’t Worry Darling was in the top 15 most-searched celebrities, but didn’t quite outshine other breaking stories, like that of Will Smith’s Oscar fiasco.
