Johnny Depp isnt here yet. Still, his presence is all around the 10,500-square-foot rented mansion at 16 Bishopswood Road in Londons Highgate neighborhood.
He is here in the busy hands of Russell, his personal chef working up the Peking duck. 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. And he is here in a half-done painting upstairs that features a burning black house, a child Johnny and an angry woman who resembles his mother, Betty Sue.
And then he is actually here. He is in the living room, crooning his entrance: Oh, my darling, oh, my darling, my darling Clementine. You are lost and gone forever, my darling Clementine.
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Depp has come from a photo shoot for the Hollywood Vampires, his sometime band that features Alice Cooper and Joe Perry. Trailing behind is his lawyer Adam Waldman. Depp is dressed like a Forties gangster, jet-black hair slicked back, pinstripes, suspenders and spats. His face is puffy, but Depp still possesses the fixating brown eyes that have toggled between dreamy and menacing during his 35-year career. Now, Depps studious leer is reminiscent of late-era Marlon Brando. This isnt a coincidence, since Depp has long built his life by imitating his legends buying an island like Brando, becoming an expert on quaaludes like Hunter S. Thompson.
Hey, Im Johnny. Good to meet you.
He reaches out a right hand whose fingers recently had their tats changed from slim a reference to his ex-wife Amber Heard to scum.
So are you here to hear the truth? asks Depp as Russell brings him a glass of vintage red wine. Its full of betrayal.
We move to the dining room for a three-course meal of pad thai, duck and gingerbread with berries. Depp sits at the head of the table and motions toward some rolling papers and two equal piles of tobacco and hash, and asks if I mind. I dont. He pauses for a second. Well, lets drink some wine first.
This goes on for 72 hours.
It had taken a month and almost 200 e-mails for the message to become clear: Come to London; Johnny Depp wants to bare his soul about his empty bank accounts.
Its estimated that Depp has made $650 million on films that netted $3.6 billion. Almost all of it is gone. Hes suing The Management Group, run by his longtime business manager, Joel Mandel, and his brother Robert for negligence, breach of fiduciary duty and fraud. The suit cites, among other things, that under TMGs watch Depps sister Christi was given $7 million and his assistant, Nathan Holmes, $750,000, without his knowledge, and that he has paid the IRS more than $5.6 million in late fees. (Most of the ire is directed toward Joel, who had day-to-day responsibility for Depps account.) There are additional charges of conflict of interest, saying that TMG invested Depps money for its own purposes and returned it without profit. The suit seeks more than $25 million from TMG, accounting for tens of millions it claims TMG illegally took for its commission, plus any additional damages the court sees fit.
The Mandels categorically deny all wrongdoing and are countersuing, alleging that Depp breached his oral contract with the company. The suit suggests that Depp has a $2-million-a-month compulsory-spending disorder, offering bons mots like Wine is not an investment if you drink it as soon as you buy it. Depp was continuing to concoct malicious and false allegations against the company, according to TMGs countersuit, because TMG had filed a private foreclosure notice on one of Depps properties, claiming Depp owes TMG $4.2 million in unpaid loans.
Over the past 18 months, there has been little but bad news for Depp. In addition to the financial woes, there were reports he couldnt remember his lines and had to have them fed to him through an earpiece. He had split from his longtime lawyer and agent. And he was alone. His tabloid-scarred divorce from actress Heard is complete, but not before there were persuasive allegations of physical abuse that Depp vehemently denies. Depps inner circle had begged him to not wed Heard or to at least obtain a prenup. Depp ignored his loved ones advice. And there were whispers that Depps recreational drug and alcohol use were crippling him.
During my London visit, Depp is alternately hilarious, sly and incoherent. The days begin after dark and run until first light. There is a scared, hunted look about him. Despite grand talks about hitting the town, we never leave the house. As Depps mind leads us down various rabbit holes, I often think of a line that he recited as the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland: Have I gone mad?
His closest confidant seems to be Waldman, a lawyer he met less than two years ago. Waldman, 49, possesses an unlined face, sandy hair, a designer black leather jacket and a soothing voice that could make the bird-flu epidemic sound reasonable. He tells me he is married to the worlds number-one face doctor.
Depp seems oblivious to any personal complicity in his current predicament. Waldman seems to have convinced Depp that they are freedom fighters taking on the Hollywood machine rather than scavengers squabbling over the scraps of a fortune squandered.
One day, Depp shows me his artwork, and it strikes me that Depp is now a worn Dorian Gray. I imagine Johnny doing a version of Jack Sparrow at 70, at 80, his friend Penlope Cruz tells me. It will be as charming and as great. But the things that were charming when he was 28 doing drugs and running around the scaffolding on a high floor of Atlantic Records L.A. building seem disturbing at 55. (Cruz ends our conversation by telling me about Depp trying to pull his own tooth at a London restaurant while having dinner with her and Stella McCartney.)
Maybe being a permanent Peter Pan is the key to Depps onscreen charm. But time has passed. Boyish insouciance has slowly morphed into an aging man-child, still charismatic but only in glimpses. If his current life isnt a perfect copy of Elvis Presleys last days, it is a decent facsimile.
Depp and Tom Petty had long been friends, and Pettys death hit Depp hard. Wed call each other and ask, Hey, you still smoking? Depp recalls. Tom would go, Yeah, Im still smoking, and Id feel better: Well, if Tom is still smoking, Im OK.
Depp goes quiet, perhaps realizing the sadness of what he has just said. He wipes his eyes. I loved him, he says.
The two shared more in common than an addiction to nicotine. They both arrived in L.A. whiskey tango from Florida, intent on making it as rockers (perfectly played by Depp in the video for Pettys Into the Great Wide Open). Depp changed course after an L.A. drinking buddy named Nicolas Cage told him there was money to make in acting. He eventually starred in his breakout role as a high school narc on 21 Jump Street in 1987.
We sit down for dinner, and I ask if he remembers the first big purchase he made when he started making money. He rolls another joint that he first passes to me and then to Waldman. He wants me to know it wasnt a Ferrari, but a house for his mama.
My mom was born in a fucking holler in eastern Kentucky, says Depp. Her poor fucking ass was on phenobarbital at 12.
Depp grew up the youngest of four, raised mostly by his mother, Betty Sue. His father was a civil engineer, but largely absent. They lived first in Kentucky and then Florida, moving, according to Depp, more than 40 times. His mom hurled things, but she was still his mom. Yeah, there were irrational beatings, says Depp. Maybe its an ashtray coming your way. Maybe youre gonna get clunked with the phone. Depp pauses. It was a ghost house no one talked. I dont think there ever was a way I thought about people, especially women, other than I can fix them.
Mostly, Depp remembers his mother coming home from double shifts at her waitressing job; he would rub her feet as she counted out the coins from her tips. He bought her a small horse farm outside of Lexington, Kentucky, with one of his first big paydays.
Betty Sue, I worshiped her, says Depp, but his smile quickly fades. She could be a real bitch on wheels. He tells me what he said at her 2016 funeral: My mom was maybe the meanest human being I have ever met in my life.
After buying the house for his mom, Depp treated himself to a 1940 Harley-Davidson, which he still owns. From 1986 to 2006, he made 32 movies, showing a once-in-a-generation range from Edward Scissorhands beginning a lifelong collaboration with director Tim Burton to an acclaimed portrayal of an undercover cop in Donnie Brasco.
Depp acquired a taste for the grandiose life along the way. He bought the Viper Room in the early 1990s, an old speakeasy once frequented by Bugsy Siegel, and turned it into a small rock club where everyone from Guns N Roses to Johnny Cash played. He suffered through the death of his friend River Phoenix from an overdose at the club, amid wild claims in the supermarket rags that hed delivered the fatal dose to Phoenix himself. Imagine living with that, says Depp, his eyes clouding over.
He chafed against playing the standard, dashing Hollywood hero. An adviser yelled at him when he took the title role in Ed Wood.
The guy told me, Johnny, it is not about you doing black-and-white movies about a cross-dressing, D-movie director its about fucking the girl and carrying the gun, Depp says. You need to fuck the girl, and you need to carry a gun.
A constant in Depps business was his older sister Christi, who managed his day-to-day affairs. (She never responded to requests for comment for this story.) In 1999, they realized that his current management company couldnt handle his rapidly expanding financial affairs and they needed to move to a bigger firm. By then, Depp had moved above Sunset Boulevard to an 8,000-square-foot estate nicknamed Draculas Castle. He spent a day interviewing financial managers. His last meeting, he says, was with Robert and Joel Mandel, brothers who ran TMG. Depp says he immediately took a shine to Joel, the youngest child of an Auschwitz survivor. Depp saw a kindred spirit. He was a nervous wreck, says Depp. He was pouring sweat. He was broken.(TMG disputes this portrayal).
I ask him why he would place his money in the hands of a person he would describe as a broken toy. Depp says because he felt a kinship: The monofilament that goes through all my characters, if you really look, theyre all fuckups. Theyre broken.
I try to probe deeper, but Depp is restless. The mansion is spookily quiet. Its now three or four oclock in the morning, and his cook and security guards have all retired. Despite the hour, Depps mind is a space-ball ricochet, moving through a random series of flashcards of his life. There was an incident last year at the Glastonbury Festival, where he asked, perhaps drunkenly, Can we bring Trump here?...When was the last time an actor assassinated a president? Depp was roasted in the press. I was trying to connect it to Trump saying he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, but it didnt come out right, says Depp with a shrug.
He moves to the couches in the living room and flips on the television. Depp has an affinity bordering on obsession with the bons vivants who had their late prime in the 1970s, whether it is Marlon Brando, Hunter S. Thompson or Don Rickles. Rickles was the bravest comedian ever, says Depp. Hed say anything. As proof, he finds a video of Rickles on a Dean Martin celebrity roast, turning to boxer Sugar Ray Robinson: I want to thank Sugar Ray Robinson, who said to Rocky Graziano, Hey, baby, youre hurting me. Sugar Ray is a great champion. Sugar, we would ask you to talk, but you know the blacks, your lips lock.
Jesus, says Waldman.
Depp insists its ballsy, not offensive. I mumble, I dont know about that. Depp isnt paying attention. He considers himself a funny man and tells me how in one of the early Pirates of the Caribbean movies Sparrow washes ashore and mumbles an incoherent curse.
I say Dirty Sanchez, says Depp, using slang for an obscene sex act. Before the DVD, they dropped it out.
Depp has a great affinity for Sparrow, whose persona is borrowed from Keith Richards, another Depp idol. Hes protective of the character and claims he battled with Disney screenwriters repeatedly.
Why must you have these fucking heinous subplots? asks Depp. Its convoluted. There is not a fucking soul that wants to see Captain Jack Sparrow sad.
He flips through the news and comes across a report on Harvey Weinstein. He shakes his head and calls him an asshole for burying his film Dead Man because director Jim Jarmusch refused to give up his contractually mandated final cut. He was a bully, says Depp. Have you seen his wife? Its not a wide range. Its not like he went, I must go to the Poconos to find some hairy-backed bitch.
Depp pauses, ruminating on whether he is being unkind. He mentions that once he tagged along as Weinstein was picking up his kid from school and that he could tell Weinstein really loved her. The image that took my breath away was Harvey Weinstein, a goliath Shrek thing, bending down to put on his daughters raincoat.
Outside, the London dark is giving way to a gloaming predawn. Everyone is exhausted except for Depp. He disappears for a few minutes and returns reanimated, and then proclaims that we have to watch his good friend Marilyn Mansons KILL4ME video, starring Depp in a series of lewd poses with barely clad women. Depp cranks the televisions volume and shouts above the industrial guitars, Marilyns the best. Hes such a good friend. Hes played Barbies with my daughter. Waldman groans at the Manson music and buries his head under a pile of throw pillows. This doesnt dissuade Depp, who turns the sound up until the screen reads 99.
Jet-lagged, I tell Depp I need to get some sleep. He looks disappointed but leads me down a dark corridor that twists and turns. In my sleep-deprived haze, I think I might be about to be disappeared. Then, a door opens and a giant man wearing a surgical mask appears. I shout in fear.
What the fuck?
Depp laughs.
Thats just one of my security guys. Hes got the flu. Hell make sure you get out safely, he says and gives me a half-hug.
Well talk injustice tomorrow.
It was Adam Waldman who first contacted Rolling Stone about writing a story about the injustice being done to Depps reputation and bottom line. He pointed to what he perceived to be an anti-Depp story in the Hollywood Reporter, where the Mandels were cast as eminently reasonable men who repeatedly tried to warn Depp about his precarious financial positioning. Nobody from TMG was quoted, but Waldman was convinced its fingerprints were all over the story.
Waldman made it clear he was doing an end-run without the involvement of Robin Baum, Depps formidable publicist of many years. I started looking into the case and Waldman to see if he was legit. There was stuff about him being Chers lawyer the singer is godmother to his daughter Pepper but the first hit was a Business Insider story that read Here Are the American Executives Who Are Working on Behalf of Putin. Waldman was the first on the list, which detailed his service for Oleg Deripaska, an aluminum magnate and Russian oligarch with strong ties to the Russian president.
According to Business Insider, Waldman has been paid more than $2.3 million for his work on behalf of Deripaska. Meanwhile, Deripaska became a bit player in the Russian-collusion scandal when it was reported by The Washington Post that then-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort offered to give Deripaska private briefings on the campaign shortly before the GOP convention. Waldman had his own cameo in the Putin-Trump meshugas. In February, none other than Trump would accuse him in a typically factually distorted tweet without naming him of trying to broker a meeting between Trump-dossier writer Christopher Steele and Democratic Sen. Mark Warner. In April, Deripaska was placed on Trumps sanctioned list, making it exceedingly difficult for Deripaskas holdings to do business in the United States.
Waldman joined the game in October 2016, having been told by a client that Depp needed help. TMG had just slapped the foreclosure notice on his L.A. homes for failure to make payments on a $5 million loan from the company. TMG had filed it as a nonjudicial foreclosure so there were no public filings. The public at this point had no idea of Depps financial situation.
Waldman was about to change that. He says he joined Depp for dinner at the Bel Air home of Ed White, Depps new accountant. Waldman says that White mentioned that he believed TMG had taken a cavalier approach to Depps accounts. Waldman listened closely and said hed investigate the situation.
Waldman and Depp quickly became compadres. When Waldman would find a friend he thought was on the Mandels side, hed call the star and just say, Tessio, after the Abe Vigoda character who betrays the Corleones in The Godfather. Depp instantly understood and would mutter back, Fucking Tessio.
Two months later, under Waldmans guidance, Depp filed his lawsuit against the Mandels. The suit claimed that Depp wasnt given monthly financial statements and often was presented only a signature page to sign for transactions. The suit further alleged that in addition to the $7 million given to his sister Christi TMG had cost Depp $6 million in tacked-on fees by paying his IRS taxes late for 13 years straight. Depp accused TMG of taking out $34 million in loans in his name as a result of mismanagement, with the final straw being a $12.5 million hard money loan engineered by his longtime attorney Jake Bloom in 2014, at 10 percent interest. The loan stipulated Christis, Blooms and the Mandels fees would be paid before loan repayments and definitely before Depp saw a dime of residuals from his Pirates of the Caribbean series. (Depp eventually filed a separate suit against Bloom.) Depps lawyers argued that the hard-money loan, taken through the financial firm of Grosvenor Park, was an illegal inside deal because Bloom had a prior relationship with Grosvenor. Of the original $12.5 million loan, according to Depp, $1.2 million was immediately disbursed to the trio before the loan was officially processed.
Depp and Waldman believe his lawsuit will change Hollywood forever. The suit swings for the fences and claims TMG owes Depp more than $25 million in ill-gotten five-percent commissions because, among other reasons, they claim TMG had acted not only as financial managers but also as lawyers, meaning it needed to enter a new agreement with Depp for each movie deal. (The same charge would be eventually levied against Bloom, who has filed a countersuit, denying all the claims.) Since this didnt happen, the suit alleges, Depp is entitled to recoup millions in commissions. The TMG suit points to this as being among the most ridiculous of Depps claims, that they never acted as attorneys since he already had high-priced Hollywood lawyers Bloom and Marty Singer on retainer.
This alleged violation of Section 6147 of the California statute particularly jazzes Waldman and, in turn, Depp. Waldman says when he first contacted TMG, Joel Mandel kept muttering that Depps situation was all about Hollywood math, where the star spends what they think theyve made, not taking into account taxes and agent and manager fees. (TMG denies this conversation ever happened.)
Waldman is Depps self-styled avenger. No one challenges the monster of Hollywood and survives, Waldman tells me. Everyone is too afraid. Johnnys not afraid.
Mandels camp says he learned of Depps lawsuit when a reporter called him asking for comment, a rarity since it is common in legal circles to contact opposing counsel before filing a suit.
The two warring sides met a few days later in a conference room for a settlement meeting at the law office of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, the law firm that employed Ben Chew, one of Depps litigators. Waldman was on the phone from Europe, and Chew was on video conference from Washington.
To Mandels side, it wasnt clear why the meeting had been called: If Waldman had wanted to try to work out a settlement, it would usually be attempted before dropping a legal bomb on the opposing counsel. Mandel eventually spoke up.
You didnt do your diligence, he said, and cited mistakes in the initial filing, including statements that Depps finances were being handled by a CPA-in-training, when in fact they were being covered by an accountant with 30 years experience.
The facts are there, you can read them, Waldman recalls saying via speakerphone from Munich. Youre welcome to respond to them.
Mandel lost it, according to two people in the meeting.
Youve cost me tens of millions of dollars, said Mandel. Now its my turn. Im gonna destroy Johnny. Theyll know everything. (Both Mandel and his attorney, Michael Kump, adamantly dispute that Mandel ever said any of that.)
The Mandel team got up to leave, but in the hall, they say they could hear Waldmans voice questioning the rest of his legal staff if they had carefully gone over the complaint.
Asked what he thought about all the legal shenanigans, Depp shrugs. Im just a small part of this, he says. Its the fucking Matrix. I didnt see the movie, and I didnt understand the script, but heres what it is.
Unfortunately for Depp, TMG filed a thermo-nuclear complaint last summer. The lawsuit described the actor as a spoiled brat with no impulse control. Kump noted TMG had never been sued by any of its other clients and that Depp lived an ultra-extravagant lifestyle that often knowingly cost Depp in excess of $2 million a month to maintain, which he simply could not afford. The suit claims Depp did give millions to Christi and other friends and family, but that the star knew all about it and still employed those who benefited from his money.
Kump pressed on, arguing that Depp has also spent millions to employ an army of attorneys in addition to his longtime personal attorney Bloom to bail him out of numerous legal crises and pay hush money. Some of the charges seem like cheap shots. TMG offered no specifics about the hush money and legal crises. His taxes? The suit alleges that they were paid late because Depp was chronically cash poor.
The purchases listed by TMG read like Depp gave his wallet to a tween with ADD. There was $75 million for 14 residences. He spent $3 million to shoot his pal Hunter S. Thompsons ashes into the sky from a cannon. A mere $7,000 to buy his daughter a couch from the set of Keeping Up With the Kardashians. He bought some 70 guitars and 200 pieces of art, including Basquiats and Warhols, owned 45 luxury vehicles and spent $200,000 a month on private air travel.
Then things got personal. According to the suit, Depp kept a sound engineer on the payroll so he could feed him lines through an earpiece while filming. This Depp does not deny, saying the sounds fed to him made him act with just his eyes.
Ive got bagpipes, a baby crying and bombs going off, says Depp. It creates a truth. Some of my biggest heroes were in silent film, Depp tells me, lighting another cigarette. It had to be behind the eyes. And my feeling is, that if theres no truth behind the eyes, doesnt matter what the fucking words are.
But that didnt explain the 12 storage facilities for his Hollywood memorabilia, heavy on Brando and Marilyn Monroe. Mandel alleged Depp spent $1.2 million to keep a doctor on call and another $1.8 million a year on round-the-clock security, including for his elderly mother. (When asked why his mom needed security, Depp responded that it was in case she needed an ambulance, according to sources with intimate knowledge of the conversation. TMG tried to convince Depp a nurse would be cheaper, but he couldnt be persuaded.) Kump suggested the source of Depps problems was psychiatric: In retrospect, it appears that Depp may suffer from a compulsive-spending disorder, which will be proven in this action through a mental examination of Depp.
Back in London, Im sitting with Waldman, going over the jabberwocky of the case for a few hours, when Depp emerges after sunset I never saw him in daylight dressed in his pirate-homeless attire: tattered jeans, an oversize white shirt festooned with a series of handkerchiefs. His mood is equal parts maudlin and swagger.
There are a few things Depp insists TMG got wrong for example, the $30,000 a month the Mandels claimed he spent on wine.
Its insulting to say that I spent $30,000 on wine, says Depp. Because it was far more.
Depp says they got the Hunter S. Thompson cannon story wrong too. By the way, it was not $3 million to shoot Hunter into the fucking sky, says Depp. It was $5 million.
Depp elaborates. He says the cost of the rocket launch increased when he decided he wanted Thompsons arc to be at least one foot higher than the Statue of Libertys 151-foot height. That part could be true, but I checked around about the price tag and Depp seemed to be bullshitting. Multiple reports said that the cannon stunt did cost $3 million, but perhaps Depp wanted the number to be even bigger, taking a cue from Thompson, who could never resist taking a good, true story and juicing it up with imaginary details.
It doesnt take a psychiatrist to figure out that Depp has been greatly influenced by Brando and Thompson, two father figures who did not give a fuck about what the world thought about them. Depp and Brando had been friends since the 1995 film Don Juan De Marco. When Depp bought an island in the Bahamas, it was Brando, owning his own Tahitian island, who advised him to make sure his house is above sea level.
His connection to Thompson was more visceral, spanning ludes and literature. Depp had been a fan of the gonzo journalist for years and courted friendship as he played Thompson in Terry Gilliams 1998 adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. During the filming and afterward, the two became drug-taking companions.
Waiting for dinner, Depp tells a story about Thompson picking Depp up at the Aspen airport. Doing a dead-on impression, Depp mimics Thompsons mumble: Uh, theres something I want you to try when we get to the house.
Thompson had a pipe filled with a sticky resin waiting for him. Depp did a hit, and the room spun. Hunter was shocked, says Depp. He was like, Damn, some kids brought that over, and I took a hit and puked my guts out.
Depp says he never found out what was in the strange concoction. They also bonded over an encyclopedic knowledge of pharmaceuticals. Later that night, Depp laments the passing of quaaludes from the drug scene. He reminisces about the bootleg ludes he used to take.
Theyre made with just a little bit of arsenic, or strychnine, says Depp. He stands up and a grin spreads across his face. So the high was far more immediate. Once, Depp asked a Florida bouncer to punch him while on ludes just for kicks. You either wanted to smile and just be happy with your pals, or fuck, or fight, he says.
Depp is evangelical in the uses of narcotics and thinks they could have expedited the capture of Osama bin Laden.
You get a bunch of fucking planes, big fucking planes that spray shit, and you drop LSD 25, he says. You saturate the fucking place. Every single thing will walk out of their cave smiling, happy.
With the deaths of Brando and Thompson, Depp lost the two people who could understand his fantasyland existence.
Here in London, he turns melancholy, musing about going through his recent travails without them, a fucked-up genius missing his fucked-up genius fellow travelers. As Depps life unraveled, he no longer had his closest confidants. Depp goes glassy-eyed thinking about his loneliness. Marlon and Hunter, he says. I needed my guys.
For more than a decade, what was good for Johnny Depp was good for Joel Mandel, and the financial manager took many steps to keep it that way. He installed an extra phone line in his Los Angeles home that had a special ring so Depp could reach him at any point, day or night. On the occasion of his wifes 40th birthday, Mandel had a hundred people over to his house. Still, he reached out to Depp and told him he would excuse himself from the party if Depp wanted to talk about his latest financial adventure.
During the good times, Mandel told Depp his goal was to make him financially secure enough that he would never have to take a part just to pay the bills. They never got to that point. According to TMGs lawsuit, Depp never had more than six months of savings in the bank. This grew exponentially worse after the Pirates of the Caribbean series began, earning him approximately $300 million. Depp had always been critically acclaimed, but it was Jack Sparrow who turned him into a global brand with action figures and $30-million-per-film paychecks coming in. But Depps tastes grew wilder, and daily conversations between Mandel and Christi revolved around either trying to stop Depp from buying another house or finding a project that would pay for the new house.
Except for Christi, Depp couldnt count on his actual family for guidance they seemed at the core of many of his financial fiascoes. Over some tuna-fish-and-corn sandwiches Depps favorite he talks of the money pit that Betty Sues farm in Lexington had become. Soon after its purchase, he tells me, Depps other sister and her husband moved in and were hired to manage the property. Eventually, their son joined the payroll. (Meanwhile, Depp was supporting his ex-partner Vanessa Paradis and their two children, Jack and Lily-Rose, in their own French villa that Depp bought for them.)
According to Depp, after years of keeping him in the dark, Mandel communicated to him that the Kentucky branch of his familys spending was out of control. So Depp asked him to send a file with all their expenses. He was in makeup on a Pirates of the Caribbean movie when the file arrived, and he asked his assistant to print it. His assistant said he couldnt do it.
Its over 200 pages, the assistant said.
Depp called Mandel and asked him what the hell was going on.
[My sister] was buying handbags for my mom, who was bedridden, Depp recalls. Jewelry, fucking this, that, everything.
In 2013, Depp was told that Betty Sue had terminal cancer. He moved her up to Los Angeles and rented her a $30,000-a-month house that was far enough away from his spread that they could coexist. Somehow, Betty Sue got better with treatment, and Depp informed the Mandels that the lease should be ended and Betty Sue could head back to Kentucky. But the house kept running up $30,000-a-month charges because, according to Depp, the Mandels forgot to cancel the lease. (TMG says that Mandel simply renegotiated the houses lease as directed, which required giving the landlord four months notice.)
Betty Sue died in 2016. I ask Depp if he has sold her farm. He tells me his family still lives there.
Their thinking is that Im going to take care of them forever and that the farm is now theirs, he says. I didnt make that promise.
I then ask what seems like a logical question: Why didnt Depp just pick up the phone and read his family the riot act and cut off their credit cards?
Depp furrows his brow and looks confused. Hes convinced that was TMGs job: Thats why Im paying them.
Ironically, the Mandels argue that nothing would have made Joel Mandel happier than cutting up the Depp familys credit cards, but Johnny couldnt pull the trigger. Back at my hotel, I look at Depps court filings. Among the pile of charges against the Mandels, there is no mention of the Kentucky farm.
Depps case centers largely on the claim that he was kept clueless until it was too late, despite the fact that, besides himself, the only person who had the power to authorize new expenditures was his sister Christi. The Mandels have produced a series of e-mails and notes that undermine Depps argument. In 2008, Depp was intent on purchasing a house adjacent to his property in the Hollywood Hills. Mandel suggested it wasnt a great time to buy the house, but it could happen if other cuts were made. Depp wrote back, We must buy this house.
In the same e-mail, he simultaneously chastised Mandel for sending him hefty packets with too much information and expressed complete confusion at how his finances were run.
There are more signs Depp knew his situation was chronically precarious. Mandel wrote to him again in 2008, as the Great Recession was hitting, about his financial shortcomings. In the same e-mail where Depp insisted on buying the Hollywood Hills house, he said he would talk to his agent, and Bloom, his lawyer, and rectify things: I will call Tracey and Jake and prepare them to make some ludicrous deals to refill the glass and make it fucking overflow.
A TMG staffer was tasked with trying to moderate Depps spending on his various homes. In January 2009, Depp contacted Mandel and demanded that the staffer be taken off his account immediately because he was restricting his spending. Later that year, according to Mandels notes submitted into evidence, Mandel suggested they meet to discuss his financial situation that had further deteriorated because Depp had taken much of the previous 12 months off. But Christi called Mandel back the next day and said Depp didnt want to discuss it and knew what needed to be done.
According to Mandels notes, Christi called and said, He realizes he needs to work his ass off to maintain his lifestyle and that he wanted Mandel to do whatever was necessary to get him through the current rough patch.
That November, Mandel and Christi communicated about a loan that needed to be taken out to cover obligations until Depp got paid for his next film. Christi replied that it was hard to get Depp to sign the loan papers: He left before I could get his signature...always had someone in the room and never able to have him alone....
Mandel e-mailed Depp again, asking him to watch his holiday spending. Depp e-mailed Mandel back on December 7th, 2009:
Dear Joel, First, thank you for dealing and getting me through. Secondly, I am doing my very best on holiday spending, but there is only so much I can do, as I need to give my kiddies and famille as good a Christmas as possible, obviously within reason. But, regarding the plane situation...I dont have all that many options at the moment. A commercial flight with paparazzis in tow would be a fucking nightmare of monumental proportions....What else can I do??? You want me to sell some art??? I will. You want me to sell something else??? Sure...what???
By January 2010, according to court filings, Mandel was still requesting that Depp sign loan papers. He told Christi that we are almost $4,000,000 overdrawn. Depp eventually signed.
Depp was stubborn even when his friends tried to save him from himself. In 2010, he started Unison Records, his own label, but by 2014 it had lost between $4 million and $5 million. His friend Bruce Witkin, the labels president, apologized for the losses and suggested it was time to call it quits, addressing Depp by the pet name Baha. Depp wrote back to Bwoosie, a.k.a. Witkin, telling him to keep going and that it took the world 20 years to catch up to his genius. The label was finally closed a year later.
Depps spending didnt change as he aged. In what court filings by TMG call a come to Jesus moment, Mandel set up a meeting in 2012 between himself, Depp and Bloom at Depps Hollywood Hills compound, where Depp had purchased five homes that he had knitted together into an urban estate. It was deliberately planned by the Mandels to occur in the late afternoon, when Depp was clearer headed. Joel Mandel presented Depp with a one-page summary of his situation and stated flatly that something had to change or the financial futures of Depp and his kids were in jeopardy. Depp grudgingly agreed to sell his yacht but would consistently whinge about the sale to Mandel until the end of their relationship.
The come to Jesus meeting was actually the beginning of the end, though the relationship teetered on precariously for three more years. According to the countersuit, in 2015, Mandel made another plea to Depp about his dire circumstances, and Depp responded by text: I am ready to face the music, in whatever way I must....I know theres a way to dig ourselves out of this hole and Im bound and determined to do it. Things didnt get better. In August 2015, Mandel told Depps staff that there had to be new rules on controlling expenses on travel, car rental and town-car services.
Later that year, Mandel and his other advisers told Depp he had to make two movies and sell Hameau, his St. Tropez estate, and he had to do it quickly in order to cover millions in loans he had taken out to cover previous debts. The message got the actors attention. Depp responded by asking Mandel if he was broke.
Depp seemed to come around. He initially agreed on selling Hameau but then reneged after receiving a crying phone call from his daughter, Lily-Rose, begging him not to sell her childhood home. A conflicted Depp took his frustrations out on Mandel: Listen, you and I are going to have to fucking sit down and youre going to have to explain this shit to me because I dont appreciate a phone call from you in the 11th hour, Depp recalls telling Mandel. If youre going to call me, call me in the third hour.
It wasnt out of the ordinary for Depp to send an apologetic text or e-mail a few hours after an outburst. Depp vacillated about Hameau, and the property was briefly listed for $13 million and then jumped to $27 million, a sign that Depp was in no hurry to unload it. He broke promises to make the house available for potential buyers. Around the same time, he bought $108,000 in suits while on a trip to Singapore, according to communication from someone who was there.
By January 2016, Mandel was informing Christi that they had 30 days of liquidity left. Things got so desperate that Mandel told Depp staffers to stop spending money on houseplants. A frustrated Depp said he wanted to review his accounts. The Mandels didnt have a problem with that. Depp still professed he trusted Joel Mandel, texting him in late February that he had great love for him. But then communication suddenly ceased. Depp fired TMG 10 days later, in March 2016, and the legal war began.
In our conversations in London, Depps ugly 2016 divorce from Heard is the subject that dare not say its name, but it is inextricably linked to Depps troubles. Before Depp met Heard, his relationship with women was publicly chivalrous. When Penlope Cruz told Depp that she was pregnant right before the beginning of the shoot for the fourthPirates of the Caribbean, she wondered if she should drop out of the project. Depp told her that was ridiculous. He protected me every day, and by the end, I was six months pregnant, says Cruz. Ill never forget that.
Depp and Heard met on the set of The Rum Diary, an odd, unsuccessful ode to Hunter S. Thompsons early reporting years. Christi was apparently opposed to their marriage, and that opposition led to a strain on her relationship with her brother; Depps last constant connection to the real world was severed. Depp, according to TMGs suit, spent $1 million on the wedding, held on his Bahamian island.
On May 20th, 2016, Depps mother died. The next night, Heard reportedly called iO Tillett Wright, an artist and friend of the couple, and told Wright to call 911. Wright wrote later on the website Refinery29, I could hear [Depp] saying, What if I pulled your hair back?
Wright called the police, and photographs of Heard with a bruise on her face emerged. Wright also wrote: The reports of violence started with a kick on a private plane, then it was shoves and the occasional punch, until finally, in December, she described an all-out assault and she woke up with her pillow covered in blood. I know this because I went to their house. I saw the pillow with my own eyes. I saw the busted lip and the clumps of hair on the floor.
Two days later, Heard filed for divorce, on the eve of Depps mothers funeral. That summer, video was leaked to TMZ of Depp smashing cabinets and pouring himself a Big Gulp-size glass of red wine. When he realized Heard was filming the incident, he appeared to grab her phone and trash it. The couple settled their divorce in August, filing a joint statement that partially read, Our relationship was intensely passionate and at times volatile but always bound by love. Neither party has made false accusations for financial gain. There was never any intent of physical or emotional harm.
Heard received a reported $7 million payment which she donated to charity and they both signed nondisclosure agreements. Before I arrived, Waldman had instructed me that Depp couldnt speak about Heard because of the NDA.
Heards name was front and center that night in London because J.K. Rowling had released a statement - in the wake of the #MeToo movement explaining why she hadnt fired Depp from Fantastic Beasts. When Johnny Depp was cast as Grindelwald, I thought hed be wonderful in the role, Rowling said. However, around the time of filming his cameo in the first movie, stories had appeared in the press that deeply concerned me and everyone most closely involved in the franchise....However, the agreements that have been put in place to protect the privacy of two people, both of whom have expressed a desire to get on with their lives, must be respected. Based on our understanding of the circumstances, the filmmakers and I are not only comfortable sticking with our original casting, but are genuinely happy to have Johnny playing a major character in the movies.
Later that night, Depp tells me about the acute depression he entered as his personal and financial lives came crashing down simultaneously.
I was as low as I believe I could have gotten, says Depp in a dead voice. The next step was, Youre going to arrive somewhere with your eyes open and youre going to leave there with your eyes closed. I couldnt take the pain every day.
He went on tour with the Hollywood Vampires and decided to write a memoir on an old manual typewriter, like his hero Thompson.
I poured myself a vodka in the morning and started writing until the tears filled my eyes and I couldnt see the page anymore, he says. He wipes his eyes with the sleeves of his white shirt and continues his monologue. I kept trying to figure out what Id done to deserve this. Id tried being kind to everyone, helping everyone, being truthful to everyone. He pauses for a moment. The truth is most important to me. And all this still happened.
I have a harder time getting an answer on how Christi had received $7 million in unaccounted money, and his assistant Nathan Holmes nearly $750,000. Depp describes Christi as being the Mandels patsy, without going further into detail. Members of Depps inner circle later tell me that Depp and Christis relationship was badly damaged when he married Heard without a prenup. He cut himself off from the only people looking out for him, a longtime associate tells me. The former insider also maintained the idea that Depp didnt know his sister was receiving payments from his account was ludicrous.
Depp also tells me that Holmes never really received the total $750,000. He didnt get it all, says Depp. Later, Waldman tells me that Depp was confused and that Holmes had received all the money. (Both Holmes and Christi still work for Depp, with his sister running his production company, Infinitum Nihil.)
One of the central questions at the heart of the competing lawsuits will be the court deciding whether informing Christi of Depps financial state is the same as telling Depp himself. In TMGs quiver is an e-mail submitted into evidence in which Christi told a Mandel associate not to bother her brother because she was a one-stop informational center for Depp. When Mandel tried to apply Christis producers share of back-end movie profits to pay down the loan, according to sources familiar with the transaction, Depp became furious and refused to allow it, hardly the action of a man being bamboozled by his management company.
It seems Depps strategy is a classic Hollywood defense: I wasnt paying attention, and while I wasnt paying attention, the people supposedly paying attention robbed me blind. He tells me that, to do justice to the assortment of eccentrics he played on film, he couldnt let the outside world intrude. (Tim Burton told me in his role of Willie Wonka, Depp was channeling one part Anna Wintour and one part Michael Jackson.)
If there were things for me to sign that would come in and there would be occasionally I would sign them like this, says Depp, pantomiming signing an imaginary paper with his right hand while his head was swiveled far to the left, staring into the London gloom. I dont want to fucking see what they are because I trust these people.
Later, he grimaces: Now I look right at everything I sign.
After my London visit, I obtain access to some of Depps loan agreements, including one for more than $10 million. The terms and amount of the loan were right there on the summary page he signed. Depp would have had to sign with his eyes closed to miss them.
It appears it will be up to others to bail out Johnny Depp. One of them was almost stopped before she started. On the night of February 28th, 2017, Janine Rayburn received a courier letter from Michael Kump, TMGs primary lawyer. It read:
I am writing to provide you with a copy of the Severance, Release, Confidentiality and Non-Disparagement Agreement that you entered into with TMG effective December 3[rd], 2010....
The letter did not arrive randomly. Rayburn is a former account manager for TMG and was tasked with handling Depps finances. She was about to be deposed for the lawsuit. Kumps letter was a polite threat, implying that testifying would violate her 2010 separation agreement with TMG.
Rayburn was apparently undeterred and gave her deposition two days later. Quickly, it became obvious why Kump wanted to quash her testimony. Rayburn had worked on the Depp account from 2008 to 2010, and she saw things that she claims were not on the level. According to her testimony, she says her concern was piqued when she was asked to notarize documents without Depp or Christi present which is illegal in California. Rayburn took the documents back into Mandels office and put them on his desk.
I cant do this, Rayburn said she told Mandel.
According to her, on one occasion, Mandel said that Christi would sign her notary log later, but Rayburn still refused. (Mandels lawyer denies this ever happened and that he went to extraordinary lengths to get Depps signature while Depp was on set.) During the same time period, Rayburn saw Christis expenses being paid out of the Depp fund: her daughters wedding, rent and mortgage payments. On two occasions, she said she asked Christi to explain the seemingly unapproved expenditures. Hes my brother. My money is his money. His money is mine, Christi answered, according to Rayburns testimony. Rayburn said she asked Mandel about the odd Christi-Depp situation, but he shrugged it off.
Trying to prove Rayburns suggestions that some of Depps financial signatures were sketchy, Waldman sent me two Depp signatures. One is for a 2010 loan, purportedly signed by Depp while he was overseas. The signature is generic and subdued. Then Waldman sent me a more recent signature that is flamboyant and outlandish. They look superficially similar. Depp didnt agree. He wrote to Waldman: If, one wanted to make the signature APPEAR to have been done very quickly, AS MINE IS, but, in fact...looks as if executed from careful study, instead of organically. what im saying is that...these shapes DID NOT COME FROM MY HAND!!!
During Rayburns deposition, one of Depps attorneys asked if Depp was kept in the loop about his spending. I do not believe that Johnny was aware of his financial situation, said Rayburn. To my knowledge, financial statements were not sent to him.
Rayburn was terminated from TMG in 2010, being told it wasnt a good fit. Still, she was asked to stay on three weeks longer and train her replacement. Baffled by the firing she received a $40,000 severance package Rayburn wrote two pages of contemporaneous notes to herself about her Depp experiences including: Joel says JD always drunk will sign anything. (Mandels lawyers deny that he ever said anything about Depps drinking.)
Depps lawyers also produced an e-mail from a Depp staffer, recounting a time when Rayburn claimed Joel Mandel needed to confront Depp about his precarious situation, but got so nervous he went home with shingles. The staffer wrote that a residual payment from Disney saved Mandel from having to have the conversation with his star client. (A source close to Mandel claims hes never had shingles.)
Mandels lawyers also went after Rayburns credibility. She admitted that just because she wasnt aware of Depp getting sent a monthly statement, doesnt mean it didnt happen. To put distance between her and Depp, Mandels lawyer elicited Rayburn to admit shed only talked to Depp twice, and that both times were about his eBay account. Mandels legal team also noted that she misrepresented her educational background (professing she had a bachelors degree in business when she did not), and wasnt part of the TMG team that regularly briefed Depp on his finances.
Still Rayburns testimony left a mark. At the end of her day of testimony, Depps lawyers requested more time. Kump declined and said if they wanted more time, they would have to seek a court order that he would oppose. Rayburn was not deposed again.
Part of Depps suit claims that the Mandels are guilty of inside dealing. According to his legal team, the Mandels wired $1.5 million of Depps money, without telling him, into Lionheart, a hedge fund that, according to the SEC, is partially owned by the Mandels. Waldman claims TMG never disclosed that they owned Lionheart. (TMG asserts there were multiple conversations.) In 2008, the Mandels put the $1.5 million back in Depps account with a minuscule profit of $32,000. Depps return was a measly 0.3 percent, which, the Mandel team says, was because Depp always cash poor needed the money and the market was crashing due to the Great Recession.
The chronic late payments of Depps taxes are a black mark against TMG.
I just had no clue, says Depp in one of the few moments when he looks genuinely worried. If youre knowingly not paying the United States government taxes, somebody is gonna fucking catch up with you and hand you a bill and youll probably go to the pokey.
While the Mandels claim it was all about Depps cash-flow problems, Miriam Fisher, a tax attorney first employed by TMG and later by Ed White, suggests TMG had two options: get their clients finances in shape so he could pay on time, or borrow money from a commercial lender and not use the Internal Revenue Service as its bank. TMG had a lot of options, and they chose the worse one: make the IRS your creditor.
The attention of Depps suit has shined an unwelcome spotlight on TMG, which has always kept a low profile. The Wall Street Journal reported in August that both the SEC and the IRS were in the preliminary stage of investigating the Mandels on alleged money laundering and fraud. (The Mandel legal team is convinced Waldman called the agencies; Waldman denies the claim.)
Whether these federal investigations will amount to anything is unknown nothing has emerged so far but there was no doubt whom the Mandels blamed for their troubles: Johnny Depp. TMGs lawyers released a statement:
In 30 years of business, no current or former client of TMG has raised any issue, other than Johnny Depp, who continues to spread malicious, unfounded lies about the company. TMG will vigorously defend and defeat all of Depps fabricated claims.
On the third day, I go back to my hotel room for a hot shower and a change of clothes before returning to the mansion.
You should have just stayed here, says Depp.
When I tell him I needed to change my underwear, he grins.
Thats why I always wear two pairs, says Depp with a smile. Matter of fact, Im wearing six condoms right now. I laugh, which seemingly encourages him: I also have a dental dam if you need one.
We are all punch-drunk in each others company, but some are just plain drunk. Maybe it is the booze and hash, but Depp seems happy to just have someone to hang out with, even though we have exhausted the ins and outs of his case. Someone mentions they cant stand Oasis. This is enough of an opening for Depp to grab an acoustic guitar and spend 20 minutes tuning it, before squawking out a few notes of Wonderwall. My head pounds, but you can tell the guitar brings him comfort, taking him back to his younger days when he was a male ingnue and not a punchline: bankrupt, isolated and one more mistake away from being blackballed from his industry.
He talks about his early days living with a few roommates in an L.A. flophouse. One time, after ending the previous night in a cheap Venice Beach motel, Depp returned home. Within 48 hours, everyone was scratching below the belt. There was an apartment meeting: Were itchy. Why are we itchy?
Depp shaved his entire body. He looked at the crabs under a magnifying glass.
They look like crab-crabs, like from the sea. He laughs a bit. I gave everyone scabies, says Depp, taking another drag on a cigarette. You know how hard it is to tell your roommates that? He puts on a voice that sounds like Kramer from Seinfeld: Uh, I got scabies from a hotel room, I swear. Sorry, dude.
He recalls going to the drugstore to buy Kwell, an anti-scabies medication. I think the guy was, Price check on the Kwell.
Everyone laughs, but Depp isnt done.
My roommate couldnt say much. He was a bank robber. I say that sounds like bullshit, but Depp tells me to look it up.
He was the ponytail bandit, he says. He was 11 and 1, but that one will get you. He only robbed banks in Beverly Hills.
I look it up on my phone, and there was, in fact, a ponytail bandit in L.A. at the time. Depp nods after I show him confirmation.
I told you, he says. I dont lie.
The night turns into early morning. A light snow begins falling on the grand backyard of the house, a backyard that no one in Depps entourage has set foot in during their stay.
This spring showed Depps legal team in disarray. In April, the team gave notice that it was quitting and an obscure Orange County firm was taking its place. Three weeks later, Ben Chew, Depps chief litigator, re-emerged and signed back up with Waldman. Adding to his troubles, Depp is being sued by his American bodyguards for back wages, and they have alleged they had to alert Depp to illegal substances visible on his face and person when in public. After many delays, Depp finally sat for a deposition on May 26th. The trial is still scheduled for August. What happens next is anyones guess.
The wild card is Christi. Shes made no public statements about the dispute, and neither party has accused her of wrongdoing. But the crux of the dispute may hang on how much power Depp gave her over his finances.
Legal experts say the lawsuit could cost Depp millions in legal fees, and his chance of recouping that at trial seems dubious. Waldman kept floating alternate theories involving Malaysian banks, a Hollywood superagent and Mideast investors, nothing has been substantiated maybe hell pull it off at the trial. Depp spent Christmas in France, the winter in the Bahamas and much of the spring at his Hollywood estate. He never did sell Hameau or any of his other properties. He seems unlikely to compromise or admit defeat.
I have never, ever in my life been the bully kid, Depp tells me. I never went out of my way to hurt anybody. When I was a little kid, what I was taught was never fucking start a fight, but if somebody fucking tags you or invades your fucking world, finish the fucking fight. To my moms exact words, Lay them out with a fucking brick.
Depp says the fight is for his children, Jack and Lily-Rose, a Chanel model.
My son had to hear about how his old man lost all his money from kids at school, thats not right, says Depp. He rubs his eyes with his tobacco-stained hands. He says one of the proudest moments of his life was when Jack said hed started a band and Depp asked what they were called.
The kid says Clown Boner. Depp smiles proudly. We dont need a paternity test. Thats my kid.
Depp rambles on about what he wants to do as soon as the lawsuits are settled and he is vindicated. There is a French book he wants to adapt and direct. Its about a man who loses his wife, loses everything and then checks into a senior-citizen home even though hes only in his forties.
Its called Happier Days, Depp tells me. (This is not to be confused with a Keith Richards documentary that Depp says hes halfway done with, which is tentatively titled Happy.)
From there, its a short jump to musing about a remake of Titanic, filmed entirely in a bathtub.
That would be great, but Hollywood never takes risks anymore, says Depp with a sigh.
I want to go home, but feel reluctant to leave. One of the most famous actors in the world is now smoking dope with a writer and his lawyer while his cook makes dinner and his bodyguards watch television. There is no one around him who isnt getting paid.
Light begins to seep through the windows. Waldman goes to sleep. He has an early flight to Switzerland to go cross-country skiing with Oleg Deripaska. I see this as an opening to leave. Depp looks for a security guard to call me a cab, but his knocking goes unanswered. So he walks me out.
Thanks for coming, says Depp. This could be your Pulitzer.
For the next 15 minutes, Depp tries to figure out how to open the gates to his mansion fortress. He clicks buttons and pushes the fence, but nothing budges. He is a lost boy who wont find his way home before dark. I finally tell him I can shimmy over the fence. I clamber over and jump down. Through the bars we say good night.
Take care, man, he says. He goes silent for a moment. Thank you for listening.
He then turns around and walks back into his gilded prison and pushes open the heavy door. After a moment, it slams shut behind him.
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