There’s a certain point when even the most extraordinary storyline becomes tedious. Take Johnny Depp’s recent embrace of multiple lawsuits, and what those lawsuits have revealed about the day-to-day life of the incredibly wealthy and famous actor. He’s sued his money managers (they settled), and now he’s suing both his ex-wife Amber Heard in the U.S. (that trial starts later) and British tabloid The Sun for libel (the outlet referred to him as a “wife beater” in a 2018 headline). The latter two cases link back to his tumultuous marriage to Heard from 2015 to 2017, which has involved accusations of abuse, as well as denials of abuse, from both husband and wife.
But before the two latest suits, Depp invited a Rolling Stone writer into his home to discuss everything from how his financial managers allegedly screwed him over to how they underestimated what he actually spent on various larks, like shooting the ashes of a late gonzo journalist out of a cannon. After so many stories of excess, you get kind of lost in the inanity of it. The strange details and bizarre twists in these cases, even as some are merely alleged publicly, hint at what can happen when a pirate spends his plunder.
And it is wild! He hired a cannon to blast out Hunter S. Thompson’s ashes, which probably still radiated with the Dunhills and the quaaludes. In his personal collection spanning several homes, there was apparently enough good wine to get a pod of blue whales drunk many times over. For a man who’s been in possession of private penthouses and a private island, and chartered private planes, parts of his life have been revealed in mind-boggling detail thanks to the lawsuits, which dive into his personal finances, his toxic relationship to Heard, his substance abuse. Depp entered willingly into all three of these current legal snares—but maybe they were a fait accompli, beget by wealth and fame. Or maybe once a man has as much as he does, he also feels he has nothing to lose.
But at some point it’s no longer shocking when the actor says in court that he was upset on the day of his wife’s 30th birthday party because he found out he had lost $650 million somehow on top of the $100 million he owed in back taxes due to mismanaged money. What did you expect when the pirate spends his plunder.
It took one photo, though—a photo of Depp asleep on the couch with melted ice cream spilled on his lap—to bring a new, uncomfortably real, and pitiable wash to the case at hand. Page Six published the photo, which was entered as evidence in the London High Court as part of Depp’s lawsuit against The Sun. It’s a twisted version of the “stars are just like us” moment, which was the point of it, Depp said on the stand on the fifth day of his trial Monday. The point of the photo, taken by Heard, was to embarrass him. “I was obviously on the nod and very tired, falling asleep, and the ice cream then spilled all over my leg,” Depp explained, referring to being on opioids. “Then she took that…and showed me the next day and said, ‘Look at what you’ve become…look at you, it’s pathetic.’” (The court has heard, too, from a witness from the private island as well as Depp’s former assistant claiming that Heard was the aggressor.)