Who knew that buying an island, 14 homes,
a yacht, a ton of art, and enough wine to get a small country drunk for years would
quickly drain one's bank account? Apparently, not Johnny Depp, who did all of
that and more before suing his financial managers for fraud. Here's how he lost his fortune. The main reason we know about Johnny Depp's
spending habits is a high-profile lawsuit Depp brought against his former managers and
all the claims found in the lawsuits' mountains of paperwork. In January 2017, the same day Depp finalized
his divorce from Amber Heard, he sued The Management Group, or TMG, for $25 million,
alleging, Depp claimed he'd lost tens of millions of
dollars and was forced to sell off millions worth of assets to make up for TMG's mistakes
and dishonesty. He also sued his talent lawyer Jake Bloom
for malpractice, claiming Bloom worked with TMG against Depp's best interests. TMG denied Depp's allegations and countersued
the actor. In July 2018, Depp and TMG settled their suit,
though details of the settlement have been kept confidential. However, the lawsuit exposed much of Depp
and his team's extravagant spending. "Well, hello." "Eyes linger any longer, I'll have to charge
rent." "I'll pay." Johnny Depp bought a farm for his mother,
Betty Sue, with one of his first big acting paychecks. He told Rolling Stone that soon after he bought
the property one of his sisters, his brother-in-law, and Depp's nephew moved in. So he employed them to manage the farm. Depp said that by the time TMG warned him
that the Kentucky leg of his family was tearing through his money, it had already been going
on for years. He asked for documentation of the spending,
and what he got from TMG was more than 200 pages of material. Depp told Rolling Stone, When Betty Sue was diagnosed with cancer in
2013, Depp rented his mother a Los Angeles home for $30,000 per month. But he said that when his mother recovered
and he told TMG to cancel the lease so she could move back to Kentucky, that his financial
managers just forgot to do it. TMG denied the claim, saying they renegotiated
the lease as instructed. Regardless of their spending, Depp's family
still lives on the farm. The actor told Rolling Stone, Johnny Depp and longtime partner Vanessa Paradis
split after Depp started seeing his Rum Diary co-star Amber Heard on the sly. The new couple tied the knot in 2015 in the
Bahamas with a wedding that cost $1 million. Wedded bliss did not last long unfortunately. Heard filed for divorce the following year,
and that cost Depp another $7 million in a settlement to Heard, which she donated to
charity. While $7 million may sound like a drop in
the bucket to someone like Johnny Depp, the marriage, while it lasted, took a serious
financial toll all on its own. According to E! News, Heard, in one of her
early divorce paperwork filings, requested $50,000 a month in spousal support based on
her spending during the marriage. Considering Heard's own income was surprisingly
low, chances are it was largely Depp's money they spent while they were married. Pile on legal fees, and from beginning to
end this relationship was very expensive. "Look what I've got! I've got
a jar of dirt! I've got a jar of dirt! And guess what's inside it!" When Johnny Depp split from longtime partner
Vanessa Paradis in 2012 after 14 years and two children together, it was amicable, but
it wasn't cheap. The Sun reported that Depp would likely pay
Paradis a lump sum settlement of around $127 million. "The only
thing that matters is the ending. It's the most important part of the story,
the ending." No one knows for certain how much he spent
on Paradis after the split, but The Hollywood Reporter claimed he bought her a $4.5 million
home. Fortunately for Depp, Paradis married French
director Samuel Benchetrit in 2018, so the actor's likely off the hook for everything
but child support. Johnny Depp was often cash poor because he
blew money on some fairly eccentric things. "Good news guys, I spent all my money." What kinds of exxentric things? Well, depending on who you ask, he either
spent $3 million or $5 million to fire the ashes of his late pal Hunter S. Thompson from
a cannon. Depp also owns dozens of guitars, over 40
luxury vehicles, and some 200 pieces of art, including Warhols. Depp's yacht cost him $18 million, and maintaining
the yacht costs $350,000 per month. "Abandon ship. Into the longboat." "Jack! The Pearl." "She's only a ship, mate." Aside from his own indulgences, Depp was also
a generous gifter. People reported he dropped $400,000 on a diamond
cuff for Amber Heard while they were together. He also shelled out $7,000 on a couch from
Keeping Up With The Kardashians for his daughter Lily-Rose. Johnny Depp has rarely been shy about his
drug use. In fact, in their profile of Depp, Rolling
Stone said they saw a joint the size of a cigar in his home, though it was never definitively
identified as belonging to Depp. He also reportedly has a near bottomless supply
of wine which he admitted was expensive. In the paperwork they submitted to court,
TMG claimed Depp spent $30,000 on wine every month. But Depp was not happy with that figure. He told Rolling Stone, "But why is the rum gone?" Apparently it wasn't just Depp's spending
on his personal vices that chipped away at Depp's fortune, but the mental state those
vices left him in. "This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. Questions?" A source told The Hollywood Reporter that,
leading up to the TMG lawsuit, it was increasingly difficult to get ahold of him, "And a very likely, some might say, uh, my
uh, uh, sanity." In court documents from Depp's legal battle
with TMG, Depp's tax attorney said he tended to drop the ball at tax time. Considering he allegedly owed close to $6
million in penalties and interest to the IRS for delinquencies between 2000 and 2014, we're
not sure he dropped the ball. It sounds more like he threw it as hard as
he could. On top of the penalties, Depp owed the IRS
well over $300,000 for the 2015 fiscal year. And remember: none of this is what Depp owed
in actual taxes, it was just interest and late penalties tacked on to the taxes themselves. Depp told Rolling Stone, In addition to his family working on the Kentucky
farm, Johnny Depp had a staff of 40 full-time employees. That doesn't include the $150,000 monthly
tab on his family's security detail or the $200,000 monthly bill for private jet travel. Rolling Stone also reported that Depp spent
over $1 million to keep a doctor on call. Along with all of that, TMG claimed something
that not only attacked Depp's spending habits, but his acting. They said Depp never wanted to bother memorizing
his lines, so he employed a full-time sound engineer to feed him his dialogue during filming. "Ah! Ah! Listen to me, not to him." TMG claimed the engineer's yearly retainer
was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Depp didn't deny that he employed a sound
engineer, but he said it had nothing to do with feeding him lines. Instead, he said the sound engineer feds him
random sounds that force him to act only with his eyes. Depp explained to Rolling Stone, Johnny Depp loves real estate, and it cost
him. Big time. In addition to the Kentucky farm and the $30,000
Los Angeles rental he kept for his mother, Depp had 13 other residences of his own. The Hollywood Reporter estimated that Depp's
five houses in the Hollywood Hills are worth about $19 million collectively, and Us Weekly
reported he wanted to build underground tunnels connecting them. Depp once owned five penthouse lofts in downtown
Los Angeles. He sold two of them, and the remaining are
valued at approximately $6.5 million. Depp affectionately dubbed his private island
in the Bahamas as "F--- Off Island," for which he paid well over $5 million. He also owns compound the size of a village
in France. It's unclear how much he paid for it, but
we know he spent $10 million just to renovate it. Depp considered selling the French estate,
but a tearful phone call from his daughter, who grew up at the property, made him extremely
reluctant to let it go. All told, Depp's real estate cost him approximately
$75 million. Johnny Depp's divorce from Amber Heard, his
breakup with Vanessa Paradis, and the legal battles with TMG are just the beginning when
it comes to the actor's legal expenses. According to court documents obtained by The
Hollywood Reporter, TMG alleged that Depp paid an army of attorneys to keep him out
of trouble by quietly settling lawsuits, though TMG never actually specified what those were. In May 2018, People reported that two of Depp's
former bodyguards sued the actor for unpaid wages and damages, alleging Depp placed them
in unsafe situations, including driving vehicles that contained illegal substances and open
containers. After Depp was cast in Fantastic Beasts: The
Crimes of Grindelwald in spite of Amber Heard's domestic violence claims, The Sun published
an editorial criticizing J.K. Rowling for hiring the actor. In June 2018, Depp sued The Sun for defamation. The actor told Entertainment Weekly, A month later, Depp was served with a lawsuit
from a location manager on City of Lies, alleging that an inebriated Depp punched him several
times on the set. Depp's reps didn't comment on the allegations
at the time, but the film's director, Brad Furman, told Page Six, "Not sure I deserved that." "Who was she?" "What? ... I may have deserved that."
