The actor opens up about the litany of troubles he's faced over the last few years.
Johnny Depp is opening up about his legal troubles and financial woes, and trying to clear up some of the rampant rumors and speculation surrounding his tumultuous and shrouded personal life.
The Pirates of the Caribbean star sits down for a shockingly candid interview with Rolling Stone about some of the drama that has unfolded in his life -- including a highly public divorce from Amber Heard, numerous lawsuits and claims that he's hemorrhaging money.
"I was as low as I believe I could have gotten," Depp tells the publication, recalling his emotional state in the midst of his failed marriage and his simultaneously collapsing financial situation.
"The next step was, ‘You’re going to arrive somewhere with your eyes open and you’re going to leave with your eyes closed,’" he adds. "I couldn’t take the pain every day."
While his divorce from Heard was finalized in August 2016 -- following a contentious legal battle and Heard's allegations of spousal abuse, which Depp has vehemently denied -- his legal troubles continued to spiral.
In January 2017, Depp sued his former business managers, Joel and Robert Mandel of The Management Group (TMG), claiming they mishandled his money and cost him millions.
The pair subsequently countersued and claimed Depp was the one who spent all his own money on extravagances. In their countersuit, TMG claimed that Depp spent $30,000 a month on just wine, and even had a sound engineer on his payroll to feed him lines while shooting his films, so he wouldn't have to learn them.
According to Depp's in-depth interview, the 55-year-old actor doesn't deny the reports about having a sound engineer on-hand, but claims it isn’t because he doesn't want to memorize a script. Rather, it's the engineer's job to play him specific sounds to allow his to convey emotions with his eyes.
"I’ve got bagpipes, a baby crying and bombs going off," Depp says. "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 his wine budget, Depp claims the reported figures are actually way less than what he really spent.
"It’s insulting to say I spent $30,000 on wine," Depp shares. "Because it was far more."
In TMG's lawsuit, they also claimed that Depp spent $3 million to have the ashes of his close friend, iconic journalist Hunter S. Thompson, blasted out from a specially designed cannon in Aspen, Colorado, following his death in Feb. 2005.
Depp -- who played Thompson in the 1998 drama Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas --- says that figure is also far too low.
"By the way, it was not $3 million to shoot Hunter into the f**king sky," Depp states. "It was $5 million."
The financial woes hit him emotionally as well, especially with regards to how it impacted his children -- daughter Lily-Rose, 19, and son Jack, 16 -- and their view of their father.
"My son had to hear about how his old man lost all his money from kids at school, that's not right," Depp says, getting emotional.
Finding himself depressed and feeling unable to "take the pain," Depp went on tour with his band, the Hollywood Vampires, and then decided to follow in the footsteps of his late friend, counterculture icon Thompson, by writing his memoirs on an old typewriter.
"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," Depp shares. "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. And all this still happened."
Depp's candid interview with Rolling Stone is on stands now. Check out the video below for more on his high-profile legal entanglements.
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