SLIM to SCUM

June 22, 2018 6:31 AM

Multimillion-dollar lawsuits, a haze of booze and hash, a marriage gone very wrong and a lifestyle he can’t afford - The Trouble With Johnny Depp
posted by fearfulsymmetry (83 comments total)

Worst Howard Hughes. Spending any time with him sounds awful so kudos to the writer for going the distance and bringing back a full report on just how weird he is now.
posted by Artw at 6:48 AM on June 22, 2018 [17 favorites]

Never understood the appeal. He picks the worst movies to be in. The only positive I can think of about him is that he often works with Tim Burton or John August, both of whom are also awful. Sometimes you can avoid the work of all three by skipping just one movie.
posted by dobbs at 6:52 AM on June 22, 2018 [8 favorites]

Boy, that whole thing is really depressing but this is the line that stopped me in my tracks:

Depp is evangelical in the uses of narcotics and thinks they could have expedited the capture of Osama bin Laden.

What a waste of talent and money and humanity. 13-year-old me is so disappointed.
posted by something something at 6:54 AM on June 22, 2018 [25 favorites]

He disappears for a few minutes and returns reanimated

I believe this is generally how one makes $650m disappear into thin air.
posted by uncleozzy at 6:55 AM on June 22, 2018 [120 favorites]

This is what happens when you never leave your youth and instead it sours and curdles inside of you.
posted by Artw at 6:56 AM on June 22, 2018 [60 favorites]

"Depp's lawyers argued that the hard-money loan, taken through the financial firm of Grosvenor Park..."

Interesting. A company that I was working for went bankrupt when Grosvenor Park pushed it into receivership.
posted by clawsoon at 7:03 AM on June 22, 2018

That is a sobering and depressing read. Johnny Depp has been one of those pop idols who has been around for most of my life--I remember watching bits of 21 Jump Street as a kid--and then he was the Weirdo Who Could Do No Wrong in nearly all of Tim Burton's films, and then Captain Jack. This is a person who is an abuser of women and drugs and a liar, but he's trying to pay off everyone around him to make sure no one "sees" that.
posted by Kitteh at 7:05 AM on June 22, 2018 [8 favorites]

Geez, no one in this story comes off well. Deluded & indulged (to put it mildly) Depp, slightly corrupt business managers, rapacious lawyers, freeloading family members... It is shit all the way down. I shouldn't be surprised about his dysfunctional family history but it does fill in more of the blanks about his behaviour.
posted by Ashwagandha at 7:07 AM on June 22, 2018 [5 favorites]

... 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."

They say you should never meet your heroes, and generally that’s a warning that they will treat you like crap, but then, also, there’s this.
posted by Countess Elena at 7:15 AM on June 22, 2018 [39 favorites]

This reminds me of the tell-all with Hollywood business manager Kristin Lee, in which she explains how she tries to keep celebs solvent, and why it's a challenge.
posted by chrchr at 7:16 AM on June 22, 2018 [15 favorites]

My god. Talk about a hell of your own making.
posted by 41swans at 7:18 AM on June 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

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.

Day-am, this article is like a scalpel going for the jugular.
posted by like_neon at 7:22 AM on June 22, 2018 [8 favorites]

It feels like the only justification for capital-H Hollywood is the employment it provides, and we could do that through a Civilian Movie Corps, paying everyone reasonable wages. Lots of talented actors would probably be thrilled to be movie stars at a reasonable wage and we'd no longer have this system that destroys people through too much money and too much isolation while covering up their abuses.
posted by Frowner at 7:26 AM on June 22, 2018 [19 favorites]

I sometimes wonder if the most lasting cultural effect that the internet will have is that someday, no one will ever want to be famous.
posted by middleclasstool at 7:29 AM on June 22, 2018 [32 favorites]

This is what happens when you never leave your youth and instead it sours and curdles inside of you.

Also a reaffirmation of the fact that people aren't happier with this amount of money. I'm sure some are, but helps me remember that attempting to keep up with the Joneses is toxic.
posted by RolandOfEld at 7:31 AM on June 22, 2018 [5 favorites]

Nthing that article chrchr linked to is very interesting and offers and interesting counterpoint to the linked article on Depp.

I sometimes wonder if the most lasting cultural effect that the internet will have is that someday, no one will ever want to be famous.

It can't happen fast enough as far as I'm concerned.
posted by Ashwagandha at 7:32 AM on June 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

If his current life isn't a perfect copy of Elvis Presley's last days, it is a decent facsimile.

Well, yes and no. Elvis' money problems and ultimate fall were caused by being crazy-generous to his friends and wanting to be with those friends, excesses of a kind of philanthropy (but paired with a need for control over them). Johnny downing 'Big Gulps' of investment wine is a little more self-directed. But Elvis and Johnny both being poor, rural kids who hit it big, didn't have the training or capacity to handle it, and squandered it all -- there's a deeper, inner flaw which makes this all happen. For Elvis, there was this core of insecurity and feeling of inadequacy, needing to be liked and wanting to please. I'm not getting a sense of what's driving Depp, beyond a neverending bacchanalia, with excess as its own end.
posted by Capt. Renault at 7:35 AM on June 22, 2018 [13 favorites]

While I'm sure it's an interesting story of how money can get lost .... I just have no time for Depp after it was clear he beat Amber Heard to a near pulp.

He can't vaporize quickly enough for me. I'm horrified that he has any career at all after that, but hey, white men get all kinds of benefit of public forgetfulness, right?
posted by Dashy at 7:38 AM on June 22, 2018 [25 favorites]

attempting to keep up with the Joneses is toxic

Attempting to keep up with the Joneses is tough. Attempting to keep up with Brando and Thompson is toxic. Literally.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:44 AM on June 22, 2018 [15 favorites]

oh johnny depp
who will fire your ashes from a cannon
at the end


I was going to make a haiku but I don't care enough
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 7:45 AM on June 22, 2018 [22 favorites]

Well, Safari decided for me that "This webpage is using significant energy," and I had to bow out.
posted by slipthought at 7:48 AM on June 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

I'm bothered by that "once in a generation talent" line. Acting may be subjective in the end, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say no fucking way.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 7:48 AM on June 22, 2018 [21 favorites]

This was the high point:

He says one of the proudest moments of his life was when Jack said he'd started a band and Depp asked what they were called.

"The kid says ‘Clown Boner.' " Depp smiles proudly. "We don't need a paternity test. That's my kid."
posted by chavenet at 7:49 AM on June 22, 2018 [8 favorites]

I'm bothered by that "once in a generation talent" line.

Yeah, not even Mark Rylance is 'once in a generation' talent.
posted by Capt. Renault at 7:52 AM on June 22, 2018 [4 favorites]

This article just made me love and admire the guy, all the more...it really humanizes him, in my eyes. I wish my friends were still that much fun...
posted by littlejohnnyjewel at 7:52 AM on June 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

Depp has come from a photo shoot for the Hollywood Vampires, his sometime band that features Alice Cooper and Joe Perry.

Who, funnily enough, are actually still alive precisely because of their sobriety.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:54 AM on June 22, 2018 [12 favorites]

Also a reaffirmation of the fact that people aren't happier with this amount of money. I'm sure some are, but helps me remember that attempting to keep up with the Joneses is toxic.

I'm sure it's not this simple, and the situation changes you, but fuck-you money to me wouldn't mean a new house or lavish lifestyle. It would mean OH THANK GOD IF WE ALL GET CANCER WE WON'T BE HOMELESS. Like I'd probably get a cool car or something? But 15 years of marriage and parenting in a capitalist system have made me look at money as self-defense as much as anything. The way right-wingers feel about guns? That's how I feel about money and insurance.
posted by middleclasstool at 7:56 AM on June 22, 2018 [64 favorites]

I just have no time for Depp after it was clear he beat Amber Heard to a near pulp.

I think its clear from the article (if it wasn't before) that Depp is an abuser because he himself was raised in a cycle of abuse. From the article:

""Yeah, there were irrational beatings," says Depp. "Maybe it's an ashtray coming your way. Maybe you're gonna get clunked with the phone." Depp pauses. "It was a ghost house – no one talked. I don't think there ever was a way I thought about people, especially women, other than 'I can fix them.' "

I think it is possible to completely believe Heard and yet have some empathy for Depp - or at least child Johnny who was trapped in a cycle of impoverishment, love, and abuse with his mother. Even exceptionally gifted children raised in completely dysfunctional homes will grow up to be dysfunctional adults. Some adults are able to expand their lives past the abuse, but many are not. And, even for the ones who are able to break the cycle, that core child still lives inside of them, ready to do the decision making if the right combination of events occur.

So, sure, dismiss Depp as a worthless monster if you want, but remember that he is a product of the environment in which he was raised, presided over by a woman whom Depp himself called "the meanest human being I have ever met in my life."
posted by anastasiav at 8:00 AM on June 22, 2018 [22 favorites]

Depp sounds pretty vile and stupid and not even an interesting person to get drunk with. Having rough upbringing and being surrounded by a grasping family and hangers-on isn't marvelous but other have got over that. He probably would have been a lot happier as a minor rock guitarist.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:00 AM on June 22, 2018 [10 favorites]

Ok finally finished the article. It's so brutal and heart breaking. It's disgusting how he treated Amber Heard, but I still feel very sorry for him.

Also, this made me laugh:

From there, it's 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.

First made me laugh and then made me sad because it's a glimpse into the old charm he does possess deep down and it's depressing to see how his life is just spiralling out of control and the article does not give you any sense of redemption in the near future. I fear for him.
posted by like_neon at 8:04 AM on June 22, 2018 [9 favorites]

Was prompted to do a 'is anything happening with London Fields?' search and OMG there's an actual release date and a trailer (the one linked in the article is region-locked for me but I could watch the one on the films imdb page).

It's supposed to be utterly terrible and has a legal history as entangled as Depp's own - Depp has a cameo as a legendary darts player, and apparently based his performance on Bobby George.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:05 AM on June 22, 2018

Aw, this makes me sad. Somewhere I have a box that has all my old magazines with Johnny Depp on the cover. Ed Wood is still a delightful movie.

He reminds me of those guys in college creative writing classes who think that in order to write like their favorite drunk/junkie/tripping-out writer, they have to drink/shoot-up/trip as much as they did.

I'm not surprised he's a terrible spender. He grew up dirt poor, and probably never had any financial education before hitting it big. The impulse to spend it while you have it before someone takes it away is big.
posted by lovecrafty at 8:05 AM on June 22, 2018 [11 favorites]

I mean, I would like a couple million and I don't think it would change me *too* much. But hundreds of millions always seems to ruin people, especially if they didn't grow up with it. It's too much money, which comes along with too much power. How can you truly appreciate a painting or a piece of furniture if you can just buy another, more expensive one tomorrow? How can you trust your friends to like you instead of your money unless they're just as rich as you? There's no real consequences because money gets you out of everything except the completely unavoidable, there's nothing in your life you need to work for or save up for. Unless you have an incredibly strong inner drive to do something like create art or change the world, it seems like it would all be rather empty.

I'm really pleased with myself at the moment because I bought a chair for £5 yesterday and it's walnut and I think it's beautiful. Once you have too much money, I don't know if you can really get that feeling, because you can have any chair whenever you want it. It's sort of sad.
posted by stillnocturnal at 8:07 AM on June 22, 2018 [13 favorites]

but remember that he is a product of the environment in which he was raised

this is a man with enough money, time, smarts, talent and energy that he could work through that in healthy ways - instead he's pissing it away on drugs and taking it out on women

so no, not going to let the man-child off the hook when he has all the possibilities to do the work and heal himself
posted by kokaku at 8:07 AM on June 22, 2018 [49 favorites]

Speaking of """"once in a generation talent"""" - I recall this post by Scott Lemieux at the Lawyers, Guns and Money blog about the "too valuable myth" regarding politicians (article discusses former AG Eric Schneiderman, and CW for abuse):

One of the factors that allows for powerful known abusers to keep abusing is the ability of white men to create the impression that they’re irreplaceable talents even when they’re hacks and mediocrities. Lottery winners like to tell themselves they’ve been rewarded by a perfect meritocracy even when there are plenty of people who could do their jobs as well or better. The ratings of their morning shows weren’t hurt when Lauer and Rose got canned, for example. The myth of the Irreplaceable White Guy helps justify and cover up a lot of terrible behavior.

We could apply this to actors, writers, and artists as well - indeed any field where inborn (or supposedly inborn) talent and charisma reign supreme. In reality, there are plenty of good, talented people in all fields, but they've been overlooked due to not being white men. The box-office success of Black Panther and Ocean's 8 are, I hope, harbingers of a more open and diverse entertainment culture.

I really don't think there is such a thing as an irreplaceable, once-in-a-generation talent except in rare circumstances. The whole idea of inborn and irreplaceable talent that can't be taught or practiced needs some critical examination.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 8:09 AM on June 22, 2018 [33 favorites]

"... 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.""

This reminds me of the afternoon I spent watching some tweaker sing "Morning Glory" while he ran around in circles.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:17 AM on June 22, 2018

Rosie M. Banks: I really don't think there is such a thing as an irreplaceable, once-in-a-generation talent except in rare circumstances. The whole idea of inborn and irreplaceable talent that can't be taught or practiced needs some critical examination.

I think that you're completely correct. I also think, though, that the hangers-on to a particular talented person have an interest in telling the world that their man is irreplaceable. From the perspective of the world, all the talent is replaceable; from the perspective of their entourage, their man is a unique and wondrous thing, not to be tampered with.
posted by clawsoon at 8:20 AM on June 22, 2018 [7 favorites]

36 hours ago I watched the classic film The Thin Man for the first time. It's fabulous, by the way.

24 hours ago, I read that there was an on-and-off deal in development for Depp to be doing a remake of The Thin Man, and that currently it was shelved. I was swinging back and forth between "that'd be an intriguing idea" to "oh but what if it's like that weird Mortdecai thing that'd be terrible".

Then I read this just now and I'm firmly in the camp of "oh thank God he's not touching The Thin Man".

It's been an interesting roller coaster.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:37 AM on June 22, 2018 [7 favorites]

He picks the worst movies to be in.

WAT.

He's made some unconventional choices, and of late has clearly done some for the paycheck, but his career is more defined by genuinely interesting work. To me, that includes things like "Black Mass" but also "Mortdecai" (which translated poorly), "Dark Shadows," the Wonka remake, "Rango," "The Rum Diary," and especially things like "Dead Man" and "Blow" and Brasco.

Lots of actors would kill for a resume like that.

The most heartbreaking graf in the whole piece, for my money, comes towards the end:

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 isn’t getting paid.

posted by uberchet at 8:40 AM on June 22, 2018 [12 favorites]

The mythology of the sex-drugs-rock-n-roll lifestyle has a lot to answer for.

These recent Instagram photos caused a mini-storm in celebrity gossip news because he looks so very thin people were asking about his health. This Rolling Stone article talks a lot about how much wine he drinks. That's a lot of calories, I wonder if that's literally all the food he's consuming.
posted by Nelson at 8:40 AM on June 22, 2018

I don't think there is such a thing as "once in a generation" talent. I do believe there's such a thing as "three or four times in a generation" talent, but Johnny Depp is not and never was one of those three or four.
posted by kevinbelt at 8:41 AM on June 22, 2018 [3 favorites]

I really don't think there is such a thing as an irreplaceable, once-in-a-generation talent except in rare circumstances.

I'd agree as well. I think it is often very much overblown and its always some dysfunctional white guy that they are putting on that pedestal. If Depp hits rock bottom, manages to get his act together and sober up (which seems unlikely to me) I think the best career he could hope for is that of his old drinking buddy Nicholas Cage (another "once-in-a-generation talent" who's excesses caught up with him). Most of the stuff Cage does now is junk (with the odd gem) but he works steady.

not going to let the man-child off the hook when he has all the possibilities to do the work and heal himself

I agree with this especially after reading this in the article chrchr linked to:

"The insurance policy for members of SAG-AFTRA is amazing. For the money, it is the best health insurance out there. It’s only about $400 per quarter for an individual, so you’re looking at about $1,200 or $1,500 a year for the best PPO coverage in the country. It travels with you everywhere, and you have access to emergency care facilities and 24/7 mental-health care. It’s great. I wish I could get it."

posted by Ashwagandha at 8:55 AM on June 22, 2018 [10 favorites]

Then I read this just now and I'm firmly in the camp of "oh thank God he's not touching The Thin Man".

Maybe 20 years ago he'd be acceptable in that role, barely. But now? He'd be terrible. The role needs a light touch and that's definitely not Jack Sparrow.
posted by Ashwagandha at 9:01 AM on June 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

These days it's kind of sad/funny to try and watch him act in a role that requires him to play even a relatively normal human being. He's just incapable. I think he's traveled so far up his own phantasmagorical asshole that he has no clue how regular people operate. He seems to be at a point of no return in his acting, where he can only play caricatures of Johnny Depp type characters.

It's too bad, because in the late '90s/early '00s he was one of the few fairly consistent actors out there. I mean, you can never completely rely on an actor to make good decisions, but his involvement in a film was at least a plus.
posted by picea at 9:02 AM on June 22, 2018 [12 favorites]

Man, this article was really disturbing to read, and I feel like it's not something that should have been published. IDK. I can't imagine justifying the page count on this during the week the US is pulling out of the UN Human Rights Council and setting up concentration camps for children. It's not newsworthy for Johnny Depp, notorious shitty, aging drug addict and domestic abuser, to be acting like a shitty, aging addict; I don't think there's anything here that hasn't been public knowledge for the last several years. The most interesting thing in this article were those throwaway lines noting that the lawyer who's scamming him is buddies with Oleg Deripaska, but that's not something the writer really got into, so, ???

I'm also creeped out that Rolling Stone seems to be painting a revisionist picture of their own journalist Hunter S Thompson as a lying druggie who "could never resist taking a good, true story and juicing it up with imaginary details." HST's drug habits were well known, but when he was reporting for Rolling Stone, he was doing real investigative writing about eg the LAPD assassinating Chicano citizens and journalists, not hit pieces on has-been actors. They don't seem to want to talk about how much of HST's reduction to drug weirdo and Depp's mythos came directly from their own pages, how much this monster is something their magazine created.

And also, like-- maybe I haven't been reading Rolling Stone lately, but I was actually shocked by the explicit suicide baiting and overdose baiting. I'm not really a fan of Depp these days, but I'm also not really on board with Rolling Stone telling people point blank to listen to their suicidal urges or go overdose on a toilet, you know? I don't think they've even come close to being that brutal to real monsters like Cosby or Harvey Weinstien; I wonder if Depp was just low-hanging fruit for the writer, someone they think they have a chance at hurting unlike the real bad guys they can't touch, or if they're trying to make people feel sorry for him. IDK. The article felt manipulative in multiple ways, none of them good.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 9:04 AM on June 22, 2018 [14 favorites]

Let's just all take a minute to stop what we are doing and pray for our fellow creatures, who are obviously struggling, and under great duress, but as of yet have not, and as we so pray will not, commit the unforgivable sin of trying to re-make The Thin Man.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 9:06 AM on June 22, 2018 [17 favorites]

One of the most pervasive corrosions of late capitalism is the swift and summary transformation of shocking injustices into banal euphemisms.

For example: when someone manages to spend almost seven hundred million dollars, enough money to cover the operating budget for the entire school system in my city of more than half a million people, we blithely say that that extraordinary person merely has "a lifestyle he can't afford."
posted by koeselitz at 9:09 AM on June 22, 2018 [42 favorites]

I was not expecting a cameo from Oleg Deripaska.
posted by box at 9:25 AM on June 22, 2018 [7 favorites]

This article is a reminder to all that you can idolize Keith Richards all you want but one should never try to actually emulate Keith Richards. Only Keef can be Keef. Do not attempt this at home.
posted by Ber at 9:27 AM on June 22, 2018 [14 favorites]

Damn it Johnny your video for Tom Petty wasn't supposed to be a prophecy.

I pretty much gave up on him when he crapped all over Native Americans with his stupid stupid Lone Ranger remake role.
posted by emjaybee at 9:44 AM on June 22, 2018 [3 favorites]

I will not be forwarding this to my coworker who has maintained her crush on Depp since about the Edward Scissorhands era. I'm not sure if she's even aware of how things have been with him recently.
posted by PussKillian at 9:45 AM on June 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

As a counterpoint to this depressing story on Depp, check out this far more positive adjacent post on Jerry O'Connell and his love for a small town in Ontario, Canada. You don't have to be a trainwreck to be an actor or a celebrity.
posted by Ashwagandha at 10:17 AM on June 22, 2018 [3 favorites]

I'm not really a fan of Depp these days, but I'm also not really on board with Rolling Stone telling people point blank to listen to their suicidal urges or go overdose on a toilet, you know?

I must have missed this implication, but I do feel odd about it, the more I think of it. Is it usual for journalists to stay with their sources? I couldn't believe he slept in the man's house. It was like the beginning of a Gothic horror story, but if it didn't end in a basement of monsters or the Most Dangerous Game, it had to end unhappily if the writer was going to be honest. Depp seems like someone who will take the "betrayal" personally.
posted by Countess Elena at 10:35 AM on June 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

God, the thought of him doing The Thin Man, gurning and grimacing and hamming for the camera.

It's interesting to me how many male actors appear to run out of creative energy completely in their 50s, yet still get hired, where the women are simply hustled out of sight. There are a number of well-known Boomer actors who have been (or were, prior to semi-retirement) doing nothing but reprising their own personas for years, and it's supposed to be amazing. Depp's on the younger end of that, but it's the same thing.

Probably by the time you hit his age you're old enough to be responsible for whether you repeatedly beat the crap out of your wife, regardless of what your childhood was like.
posted by praemunire at 10:36 AM on June 22, 2018 [8 favorites]

I like how the article is interspersed with links to other Rolling Stone profiles lionizing Depp’s eccentricities. E.g., "Johnny Depp: The Last Buccaneer" and "Johnny Depp: Wild at Heart".
posted by chrchr at 10:36 AM on June 22, 2018 [8 favorites]

Is it usual for journalists to stay with their sources? I couldn't believe he slept in the man's house

It's rarer now but back in the day this sort of thing was much more common... a few weeks ago I listened to a radio doc about the history of music journalism and hacks would often spend days with musicians/bands even going on tour with them and getting into all kinds of lunacy. Nowadays its more likely a few minutes in a hotel room with a PR people in attendance. Depp agreeing to this kinda shows he really wants to tell his side/is desperate/a tribute to his idol Thompson
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 11:10 AM on June 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

Why did I read that?! Ugh. Everything about that was repellent. Depp seems like a man-child who never grew out of his abusive childhood because he was surrounded by money, drugs and yes-men. His financial management, past and present are repulsive ghouls who enable and suck off him until it becomes inconvenient. His physical abuse of his ex wife has been signed away in an NDA. His kids. Everything is gross, including the author. Imagine being the person who can spend days with this shithead and then writing this piece trashing him? I mean, what is the purpose of this piece? Instead of dunking on Johnny Depp, it seems like journalism could look at the structures that make this possible. The system is broken and brings out the absolute worst in everyone.

Step one: California needs to massively raise taxes on the rich. We need to raise taxes on everyone, starting by getting rid of prop 13, but income tax the hell out of Hollywood stars for their own good, and charge twice as much to the vampiric money managers.
posted by latkes at 11:18 AM on June 22, 2018 [16 favorites]

Is it usual for journalists to stay with their sources? I couldn't believe he slept in the man's house.

I'm pretty sure the writer did not stay in Johnny Depp's house. He mentions staying at a hotel several times, as well as a security guard walking him out at the end of the night (which is actually just dawn but that's apparently how Johnny Depp rolls).
posted by chrominance at 12:14 PM on June 22, 2018

Everything is gross, including the author.
posted by latkes at 1:18 PM on June 22
It's his job. It took a long time to set up the interview, to line up the time/place/etc, to cross the t's and dot the i's. It's a job.

Imagine being the person who can spend days with this shithead and then writing this piece trashing him?
Damn shame that he trashed him. It would have been a totally different interview if the writer had not smoked everything passed his way and drank every glass -- have you ever been with a person who is stoned and/or drunk and you are not? It is incredibly boring. They are unbelievably pathetic. It's really painful. But from that perspective the writer could have written a compassionate piece about a truly lost human being.

I mean, what is the purpose of this piece?
Clicks. Clickbait. They got both you and I to not only go to their page but also to read what they wrote, and in my case another click to read about Tom Petty and Prince and fentanyl, a true monster of our day.

~~~~~

For me, it elucidated the lifestyle of a person of huge wealth and connections, and how lost said person can get. No one gets to call a person a drug addict or alcoholic other than their mirror (or their doctor maybe but no one listens to that, it's the mirror that reaches deep) but he damn sure looks the part. If/when the walls do close in on him, and he loses his homes and cars and the rest of it, and has to face himself, straight-on, in a mirror -- especially if he's hit a hard enough bottom that he's gotten clean and sober -- I have heard stories of people crying for their first two years in 12 step meetings, as they are forced to face life without cushions, forced to face the garbage floating in their wake, forced to face people they've hurt. My understanding is that a good sponsor is harder to spend time with than any number of attorneys filing lawsuits.

And: the sums of money spent daily, weekly, monthly, the lavish homes, the yacht, the island in the Bahamas -- it's just amazing to me. I love bicycles but I don't have the money to buy the highest high-end, or really even in the high-end at all. Five hundred dollars spent is a careful consideration for me. I remember reading about Steve Jobs, in a bicycle shop, when for the first time it hit him that he could buy any bicycle he wanted, or ten of them -- I loved that Jobs didn't get his head turned all that much by his wealth.
posted by dancestoblue at 12:47 PM on June 22, 2018 [6 favorites]

latkes: Step one: California needs to massively raise taxes on the rich.

Remember when the Beatles wrote "Taxman" because they were being taxed at a 95% rate?
posted by clawsoon at 1:07 PM on June 22, 2018 [5 favorites]

No one gets to call a person a drug addict or alcoholic other than their mirror

I'm going to go ahead and disagree with you there.
posted by Dark Messiah at 1:40 PM on June 22, 2018 [13 favorites]

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."

You would think he would have learned from WINONA FOREVER (now WINO FOREVER) but I guess not.
posted by 41swans at 2:02 PM on June 22, 2018 [3 favorites]

There are a bunch of things to unpack here, both in the article and in the comments, so let's start with the idea that somehow Rolling Stone was awful for publishing this thing or the writer for writing it. I don't think so. I don't think that it matters that they used to make money and gain fame by indulging Hunter S. Thompson; that incurs no particular obligation on writers and editors forty years later to take it easy on him. (I should interject that I'm still a big fan of his seventies work, but he also coasted a long time on the gonzo paradigm, and ultimately that's his creation, not RS'.) Same for Johnny Depp; I will say that it's a little queasy to see them publish something like this piece (and kind of amusing that they assume that The Lone Ranger will be a big hit; Depp would end up being criticized for taking a Native American role), but even then, the writer notes how he rationalizes his drinking even in his (temporary) sobriety, before going on to rant about the evils of anti-smoking measures.

And so this new piece, which combines hanging around with Depp for a few days and letting him speak for himself with some pretty thorough documentation of how he managed to blow through nearly two-thirds of a billion dollars, being criticized because There Are Real Problems In The World Which Need To Be Addressed, Damnit, or the author may have drank and toked a bit himself. Last I checked, FanFare was still open, and regardless of how the author handled his substance intake, it's not that sort of long-day's-journey-into-night article. It's not pleasant to read, but it's also not celebrity ruin voyeurism or a lightly-sourced hitpiece. If it fills any particular function, maybe it's as an elegy to the death of the myth of gonzo. Depp certainly has spent a lot of time playing the role of cool, hip, edgy outsider, but nearly half of his dissipated fortune came from playing a Keith Richards caricature in a franchise based on an amusement park ride, and his current hope of getting out of his self-created mess is latching onto another franchise that's derived from the one about teen wizards. As previously noted, a tiny fraction of that fortune could get him all the therapy he could possibly need, and some of the people he hangs around with have been in recovery for some time and could help out with that. If, that is, he's willing to give up the myth.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:40 PM on June 22, 2018 [28 favorites]

As grim warnings against getting high on your own bullshit go it seems like it might be an effective one. Should be rapid deployed wherever a teen is about to disocver the works of Jim Morrison.
posted by Artw at 3:18 PM on June 22, 2018 [11 favorites]

For some reason, I thought the most poignant part was where he changed the tattoo on his hand to read "SCUM." Someone who does that to their body can't be planning on living very much longer.

I do hope he gets help. Alive, one can make amends and try to make things right with the people they hurt. A dead person can't do any good for anyone.
posted by panama joe at 3:46 PM on June 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

For some reason, I thought the most poignant part was where he changed the tattoo on his hand to read "SCUM."

Oh wow that's a relief. I thought her was expressing his feelings about about her.
posted by everydayanewday at 3:50 PM on June 22, 2018 [1 favorite]

Pretty much assumed that, on the grounds that it's petty and vile.
posted by Artw at 3:55 PM on June 22, 2018 [10 favorites]

"For some reason, I thought the most poignant part was where he changed the tattoo on his hand to read "SCUM." Someone who does that to their body can't be planning on living very much longer."

After he and Winona Rider broke up he altered his "Winona Forever" tattoo to read "Wino Forever". That was in the early 1990s, so I don't think post-relationship tattoo edits are a good measure of his expected longevity (even if you choose to interpret the changes as self-deprecatory rather than as cracks at his exes).
posted by Secret Sparrow at 4:47 PM on June 22, 2018

Yes, this article made me fell much better about myself, seeing as I'm smarter and more well-adjusted than Johnny Depp. Praise me brothers and sisters.
posted by some loser at 4:59 PM on June 22, 2018

Yes, this article made me fell much better about myself, seeing as I'm smarter and more well-adjusted than Johnny Depp. Praise me brothers and sisters.

'I'm better than a wife beater' isn't a thing that requires praise FYI
posted by everydayanewday at 5:25 PM on June 22, 2018

heh.
posted by Artw at 6:25 PM on June 22, 2018 [9 favorites]

As a fan of both Keith Richards and Hunter Thompson who also thinks that both of them were pretty awful people, I think Johnny Depp is the kind of cover band that has the expensive replica guitars but doesn’t know any of the deep cuts.
posted by box at 6:36 PM on June 22, 2018 [13 favorites]

After he and Winona Rider broke up he altered his "Winona Forever" tattoo to read "Wino Forever".

Yowch. Suppose I may have misinterpreted.

Nonetheless, after his first disastrous experience tattooing a lover's name on himself, you'd think he'd know better than to do it again.

I suppose impulse control just isn't his strong suit.
posted by panama joe at 6:42 PM on June 22, 2018 [3 favorites]

That his best role was Ed Wood seems sort of relevant here, though he’s actually more of a Bela.
posted by Artw at 6:57 PM on June 22, 2018 [2 favorites]

I'm very curious to know what Anne Helen Petersen has to say about this interview.
posted by mogget at 7:04 PM on June 22, 2018 [6 favorites]

"The tattoo on his forehead consists of three words, written in block letters: POOR IMPULSE CONTROL."
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 7:18 PM on June 22, 2018 [7 favorites]

Worst Howard Hughes. Spending any time with him sounds awful so kudos to the writer for going the distance and bringing back a full report on just how weird he is now.

Per Variety, the interview was "pitched by Depp’s closest confidante and lawyer of two years, Adam Waldman." I don't feel great cheering at Depp's dysfunction, but they presumably expected an admiring, sympathetic, starstruck profile. I'm glad the writer didn't go for the same kind of patch job the Hollywood Reporter gave Jeffrey Tambor. Every time I think about all the people who scrubbed up Depp's post-divorce image enough to cast him in the next 15 Disney/ATT/Comcast whatever family flicks, I want to swear off the film industry forever.
posted by grandiloquiet at 7:27 PM on June 22, 2018 [6 favorites]

Not a fan, but he was effective in 'Black Mass'.
posted by ovvl at 8:58 PM on June 22, 2018

I was hoping we could avoid "abused children become fucked up/abusers (unless they work really hard not to be)" in this thread but I guess not entirely. Remember we're here reading and not all of us turned into Johnny Depp.

Anyway, this just made me sad.
posted by colorblock sock at 12:32 AM on June 23, 2018 [10 favorites]

I've still not got around to watching the latest HP film and I think I'm pretty much done there... Disappointed with JK Rowling yet again - at the this point, Depp needs some tough love to sort himself out, not another enabler to keep him on the blando blockbuster treadmill.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:16 AM on June 23, 2018 [2 favorites]

Obv there's a slim chance he'll read this but Johnny, cut back on all the vino, see a bit of the sun, go do some charity stuff, make some reparations, drop the hangers-on... christ, even make your 'Titanic in a bathtub' movie - just gets some keen kids out of film school to help you, you can make a movie for next to nothing nowadays.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:18 AM on June 23, 2018

There was a time when Captain Jack Sparrow made my heart soar. I long for that time to come again.
posted by SPrintF at 4:59 AM on June 23, 2018 [5 favorites]

Sounds like a guy I could hit up for a few bucks if I pour him a big enough plastic cup of Penfold's.
posted by turbid dahlia at 9:38 PM on June 24, 2018