If you weren’t aware, Johnny Depp is currently in a disastrous place financially. This might be due to the fact that he apparently spends $30,000 a month on wine and pays a sound engineer to be on set so an earpiece can feed him his lines rather than having to memorize them. Depp, however, blames his managers for never warning him about his financial troubles. And unfortunately for Depp those managers have the receipts.
After Depp threw a $25 million lawsuit at his former managers from The Management Group, they’re making correspondences with the actor public to prove that he and his sister Christi Dembrowski knew about his overspending for years. Emails obtained by Deadline reveal that in late 2009 Depp’s accounts were overdrawn by $4 million. The Management Group principal Joel Mandel then emailed Depp advising him not to overdo it on holiday spending or travel:
Since my email to you in September, I have done what 1 was told you wanted done, meaning, “getting us through” financially until work could start again. The good news is that, so far, we have been able to do that. Notwithstanding, I need your help in a variety of ways. First, we need to “take it easy” on holiday spending. Second, we need to discuss some dollar limit in the upcoming Dillinger auction. Third, I need to be able to sit with you on your return from this trip, and before you leave for France, so that we can talk about where we are financially, what we have borrowed in order to sustain ourselves, what we have had to do to obtain those borrowings, what is now necessary to pay those borrowings back and, finally, to look realistically at income and expenses and to work together on how to make sure that these are back in balance.
Depp replied:
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 don’t have all that many options at the moment. a commercial flight with paparazzis in tow would be a fucking nightmare of monumental proportions.
He also writes that upcoming movies should be able to “put everything straight”: The Tourist will make him $20 million, Pirates of the Caribbean 4 will make him $35 million, and then Dark Shadows will bring in another $20 million. But he also appears to be flustered with management emailing him about his spending:
what else can i do??? you want me to sell same art??? i will. you want me to sell something else??? sure… what??? boat is going to be chartered at new years and sony will then charter it for the TOURIST shoot in venice. other than that, i got bikes, cars, property, books, paintings and some semblance of a soul left, where would you like me to start???
In addition to his accounts being overdrawn in 2009, Depp reportedly also had a deal with City National Bank to withdraw $1.98 million in 2015. The Management Group maintains that Depp alone is to blame for his disappearing funds, which he apparently spent on the sort of everyday necessities like casually shooting Hunter S. Thompson’s ashes out of a cannon for $3 million.
