What Happened to Johnny Depp's $650 Million? New Report Deep-Dives Into Star's 'Crisis'
Johnny Depp can't have spent all of that money on rum. Right? But after making $650 million across about 13 years, his fortune seems to have fallen down a mysterious rabbit hole, leading to management suits and counter-suits. A new in-depth report from The Hollywood Reporter delves into the "insane story" of this "star in crisis."
We've already seen breakdowns of Depp's alleged spending habits, and the millions he has paid for wild things. But it's his money to spend how he wants. From his perspective, his managers mishandled his money, accusing them of "self-dealing and gross misconduct." From their perspective, his spending was just out of control, and they even suggested he get a mental examination for his "compulsive spending disorder."
The Hollywood Reporter piece reads like the beginning of a book (it will probably become one), starting from an afternoon in October 2012 when Jake Bloom and Joel Mandel left their offices to visit the home of their client, Johnny Depp, to give him the bad news that he was no longer going to be able to cover his $2 million in monthly bills.
Here's an excerpt of the report from there:
"Without a fire sale, Depp — then arguably the biggest star in Hollywood and certainly one of the best paid, thanks to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise — would never be able to meet his obligations. Not the payments on his portfolio of real estate around the world. Not the impulse purchases such as the three Leonor Fini paintings he had bought from a Manhattan gallery (the first two for $320,000, the third as a $245,000 gift for then-girlfriend Amber Heard). Not the $3.6 million he paid annually for his 40-person staff. Not the $350,000 he laid out each month to maintain his 156-foot yacht. And not the hundreds of thousands of dollars he paid to sustain his ex-partner, Vanessa Paradis, and their children, Lily-Rose and Jack.
Mandel dug into his briefcase for a one-page summary he had prepared, but Depp waved it away. Still, after three hours, the actor agreed to a compromise: He would sell his beloved Amphitrite, the yacht he had bought for $10 million and spent $8 million renovating, where he'd hosted such friends as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
With his consent in place, Bloom and Mandel said their goodbyes, stepped out of the house and breathed a sigh of relief. The city stretched before them. The bright light that had bathed it when they arrived was fading and would soon give way to night.
That exchange, the start of an increasingly fraught relationship between the star and his team, would culminate in the 2016 firing of Mandel and Depp's longtime agent, United Talent Agency's Tracey Jacobs, along with a $25 million lawsuit filed Jan. 13 by Depp against the Mandels' TMG, accusing them of fraud and mismanagement, among other things.
TMG has since countersued, alleging that Depp, now 53, failed to pay its commission on his income from the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and painting a portrait of an out-of-control movie star, reeling from a nasty split from Heard and used to spending freely, including $30,000 a month on wine. The Mandels seek a court declaration that "Depp is responsible for his own financial waste"; Depp's side wants them to pay him millions, claiming they served as lawyers as well as accountants and therefore — if Depp's interpretation of a California statute is correct — had no right to a percentage of his earnings without a proper contract.
The lawsuits, along with multiple interviews conducted by THR, indicate that Depp's capricious behavior and poor decision-making placed him in a serious financial bind, which paved the way for the rupture with his closest advisers. (All declined to comment; while Bloom has not been fired, he has had no contact with Depp for months.)"
The story goes into great detail from there. Just a couple of hours after going live on May 10, THR's piece already has close to 200 comments. Everyone seems to have an opinion on the life of this man they don't know, or at least an opinion on how they would spend that kind of money, if they were ever fortunate enough to have it to waste.
"Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales" comes out May 26. Depp also co-stars in the star-studded "Murder on the Orient Express" and has the role of Gellert Grindelwald in the "Fantastic Beasts" sequel, so he should be able to make plenty of new money in the next few years.
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