Johnny Depp has opened up about his “low” emotional state following his divorce, as well as his money woes, in a candid new interview.
“I was as low as I believe I could have gotten,” Depp told Rolling Stone of the time after he split from actress Amber Heard, which saw the actor facing numerous lawsuits.
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“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 added. “I couldn’t take the pain every day.”
Depp is currently engaged in a lawsuit against Joel and Robert Mandel of The Management Group (TMG) — his former business managers — alleging that they mishandled his money, costing him millions of dollars.
The Mandel’s have countersued, claiming that it was Depp who mishandled his own money. Their claims cite expenses such as $30,000 for wine purchases, as well as a sound engineer kept on Depp’s payroll for the purposes of feeding him lines while he is on a film set.
Depp refutes that allegation, explaining that the sound engineer’s job is to play sounds that will invoke specific emotional responses, depending on what he needs for the scene.
“I’ve got bagpipes, a baby crying and bombs going off,” Depp explained. “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—ing words are.”
Regarding that wine budget, Depp said that he found it “insulting” that anyone would suggest he “spent $30,000 on wine,” quipping, “Because it was far more.”
He also addressed The Management Group’s claim that he spent $3 million to have the ashes of Hunter S. Thompson shot out of a special type of cannon in Aspen, Colorado, following his February 2005 death.
“By the way, it was not $3 million to shoot Hunter into the f—ing sky,” Depp states. “It was $5 million.”
Thompson — an iconic journalist — was a close personal friend of Depp. The actor even played him in the 1998 film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Depp went on to talk about how the financial issues affected his children. Specifically, his 16-year-old son Jack. “My son had to hear about how his old man lost all his money from kids at school, that’s not right,” Depp revealed.
Finally, Depp made an effort to fight his “pain” and depression by going on tour with his band, the Hollywood Vampires, and also by beginning a memoir that he wrote on an old typewriter given to him by 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,” Depp confessed. “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.”
Fans can read Depp’s full interview in the current issue of Rolling Stone, on newsstands now.
