Johnny Depp Gets Candid in 'Rolling Stone': Everything We Learned About the Actor
Johnny Depp is opening up in a big way in a candid new interview with Rolling Stone magazine, in which the 55-year-old actor addresses his highly publicized legal battles over his finances and reports of his extravagant spending.
Writer Stephen Rodrick was invited to spend time with Depp at his rented mansion in London, England, where the conversation also turned to his complicated relationships with close family and friends, as well as a serious struggle with depression due to problems both in his personal and financial lives.
Here's a look at the biggest revelations from Depp's interview:
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1. Depp is very much open about his drinking and smoking
Rodrick describes entering Depp's rented mansion and feeling his presence immediately.
“He is here in the stogie-size joint left by the sink in the guest bathroom. He is here in the never-ending reservoir of wine that is poured into goblets," he observes.
During their first meeting, Rodrick writes that "Depp sits at the head of the table and motions towards some rolling papers and two equal piles of tobacco and hash, and asks if I mind. I don't. He pauses for a second. 'Well, let's drink some wine first.' This goes on for 72 hours."
Depp also isn't shy about his history of using drugs. Later in the interview, when talking about one of his idols, writer Hunter S. Thompson, he regrets quaaludes no longer being around and recalls the bootleg quaaludes he used to take.
"They're made with just a little bit of arsenic or strychnine, so the high was far more immediate," he explains.
Depp then recalls once asking a Florida bouncer to punch him while on quaaludes for no reason.
"You either wanted to smile and just be happy with your pals, or f**k, or fight," he says of being under the influence.
2. He has complicated relationships with his family
Depp talks extensively about his late mother, Betty Sue, in the interview, who died in 2016 after a long battle with cancer. The actor reveals the first thing he bought when he started making money was a small horse farm for his mom in Kentucky, where she was born.
"My mom was born in a f**king holler in eastern Kentucky," he says. "Her poor f**king a** was on phenobarbital at 12."
Though he clearly loved his mother, he also claims they moved 40 times growing up and that she would sometimes give him "irrational beatings."
"Maybe it's an ashtray coming your way. Maybe you're gonna get clunked with the phone," he says. "It was a ghost house -- no one talked. I don't think there was ever a way that I thought about people, especially women, other than 'I can fix them.'"
"Betty Sue, I worshiped her," he continues, before adding, "She could be a real b***h on wheels."
At her 2016 funeral, Depp recalls saying, "My mom was maybe the meanest human being I have ever met in my life."
As for his other siblings, Depp -- who's the youngest of four -- tells the magazine that one of his sisters and her husband and son moved to his mother's farm in Kentucky, and that their spending allegedly became out of control. After his mother died, the family still lives there.
"Their thinking is that I'm going to take care of them forever and that the farm is now theirs," he says. "I didn't make that promise."
The magazine also notes that Depp's close relationship with his sister, Christi, who was once a constant in his life and managed his day-to-day affairs, became strained when she was opposed to his 2015 marriage to Amber Heard.
"Depp’s last constant connection with the real world was severed," Rodrick writes.
3. He actually spent more than $30,000 a month on wine
Depp's former business associates filed a countersuit against the actor last February, after the actor filed a lawsuit in mid-January against The Management Group (TMG) and its associates for allegedly defrauding him and mismanaging his money. Among Depp's alleged extravagant expenses they claimed they warned him about was spending $30,000 a month on wines flown to him from around the globe.
Depp proudly admits the number is actually higher.
“It’s insulting to say I spent $30,000 on wine,” Depp says. “Because it was far more."
Depp also addressed the claim that he paid a sound engineer so he could feed him lines through an earpiece while filming, explaining that it was actually sounds that were fed to him, which he says allowed him to be a better actor.
“I’ve got bagpipes, a baby crying and bombs going off,” Depp shares of the sounds. “It creates a truth. Some of my biggest heroes were in silent film. It had to be behind the eyes. And my feeling is, that if there’s no truth behind the eyes, doesn’t matter what the f**king words are.”
As for the allegation that he spent $3 million to blast Thompson’s ashes out of a specially-made cannon?
"By the way, it was not $3 million to blast Hunter out of the f**king sky," he says. "It was $5 million."
And it appears that Depp's lawsuit against TMG isn't going to be resolved anytime soon.
"I have never, ever been in my life the bully kid," he notes. "I never went out of my way to hurt anybody. When I was a little kid, what I was taught was never start a f**king fight, but if somebody f**king tags you or starts invading your f**king world, finish the f**king fight. To my mom's exact words, 'lay them out with a f**king brick.'"
4. He became depressed over his financial issues and personal life
Depp says that after his divorce from Heard and his lawsuit, he became severly depressed.
"I was as low as I believe I could have gotten,” he says. “The next step was, ‘You’re going to arrive somewhere with your eyes open and you’re going to leave with your eyes closed.’ I couldn’t take the pain every day.”
He says he then went on tour with his band, The Hollywood Vampires, and started writing a memoir on an old manual typewriter, like Thompson.
“I poured myself a vodka in the morning and started writing until the tears filled my eyes and I couldn’t see the pages anymore,” he tearfully says. “I kept trying to figure out what I’d done to deserve this. I tried being kind to everyone, helping everyone, being truthful to everyone.”
“The truth is most important to me," he adds. "And all this still happened.”
5. He was extremely close to Tom Petty
Depp reveals he had a close friendship with the late Tom Petty, who died in January of an accidental drug overdose.
The actor says they used to frequently speak on the phone, and has clearly been hit hard by his death.
“We’d call each other and ask, ‘Hey, you still smoking [nicotine]?’ Depp recalls. “Tom would go, ‘Yeah, I’m still smoking.’ And I’d feel better: ‘Well, if Tom is still smoking, I’m OK.’”
“I loved him,” he continues after a pause, shedding tears.
Later, he also laments the deaths of Thompson and Marlon Brando, and the loneliness he now feels.
"Marlon and Hunter. I needed my guys," he says.
6. He supported Penélope Cruz while they filmed Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Cruz reveals to the magazine she told Depp that she was pregnant right before shooting 2011's Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and contemplated dropping out. She says Depp opposed.
“He protected me every day, and by the end, I was six months pregnant,” Cruz says. “I’ll never forget that.”
"I imagine Johnny doing a version of Jack Sparrow at 70, or 80,” Cruz also muses, referencing his iconic Pirates character. “It will be as charming and as great.”
7. He has plenty of thoughts on Harvey Weinstein
Depp recalls his interaction with the disgraced movie mogul, calling him an "a**hole" and a "bully" when he worked with him and director Jim Jarmusch on 1995's Dead Man.
“Have you seen his wife? It’s not a wide range," he also comments. "It’s not like he went, ‘I must go to the Poconos to find some hairy-backed b***h.’”
Still, he recalls a more tender side to Weinstein, when he witnessed him picking up his daughter from school.
"The image that took my breath away was Harvey Weinstein, a goliath Shrek thing, bending down to put on his daughter's raincoat," he shares.
Earlier this month, some fans became concerned about Depp after photos of him in Russia were shared on social media, in which they commented that he looked "thin." However, an insider told ET that Depp, who is currently on tour with The Hollywood Vampires, is doing fine.
“Johnny is healthy and is enjoying his time on the road with his band,” the source said.
ET spoke to Depp last May, when he gushed about his 19-year-old daughter, model Lily-Rose Depp. Watch below:
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