ABANDONED BY MUM
Newly unearthed court documents reveal Johnny Depp was abandoned by his mother as a teen
My mom was maybe the meanest human being I have ever met in my life.
JOHNNY DEPP, Actor
Actor-filmmaker Paul Barresi, in his research for the new series Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard, has uncovered court documents that show that actor Johnny Depp was abandoned by his “mean” mother as a teen.
According to Page Six, in 1981 court papers between Betty Sue Depp and the actor’s father John Depp (the couple divorced in 1978 when he was 15), it is claimed her son was “emancipated and selfsupporting”.
But as per Depp’s earlier interviews, he began using drugs at 11, dropped out of high school at 16 to become a musician, and in 1980, began playing guitar in a band The Kids, moving to Los Angeles and spending months living in a car. His first acting role came in 1984, A Nightmare on Elm Street, after meeting actor Nicolas Cage.
Barresi said, “He struggled to find gigs in a garage band, peddled ink pens working parttime... At 17, Depp was hardly financially self-sufficient... As far as I’m concerned, his mother disowned him when he needed her. There is no court record of him ever having been legally emancipated.”
In a 2018 interview, Depp said his father was largely absent, and his mother raised him and his three siblings, also admitting to an uphappy childhood. “There were irrational beatings. Maybe it’s an ashtray... Maybe you’re gonna get clunked with the phone. It was a ghost house, no one talked,” Depp said then.
He added, he said at her 2016 funeral, “My mom was maybe the meanest human being I have ever met in my life.”