Depp spends $2m a month being Depp
Johnny Depp’s former business managers have countersued the actor, claiming his lavish lifestyle that cost more than US$2 million ($2.7m) a month to maintain caused his recent financial troubles and that the star ignored their repeated warnings.
The countersuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by The Management Group comes about two weeks after Depp sued the company alleging it grossly mismanaged his earnings.
The lawsuit said Depp paid more than US$75m to buy and maintain 14 homes, including a French chateau and a chain of islands in the Bahamas.
Depp also spent heavily to buy a 46m yacht, fly on private jets and cultivate collections of fine art and Hollywood memorabilia requiring 12 storage facilities to maintain, the lawsuit said.
Depp was repeatedly warned by the company that his spending was out of control but ignored his former advisers’ advice to control his spending, the lawsuit said.
“Depp, and Depp alone, is fully responsible for any financial turmoil he finds himself in today,” it stated.
Depp sued the group on January 13 seeking more than US$25m he contends was mismanaged. The company handled his finances from 1999 until early 2016, an especially lucrative period in the actor’s career. During that time, Depp launched the blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and other bigbudget releases, including Alice in Wonderland and the 2005 film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Depp’s lawyers did not immediately respond to email and phone messages seeking comment. The countersuit seeks a judge’s ruling that Depp is to blame for his financial troubles, and US$560,000 in fees the group said it was owed. Depp is not the first blockbuster star to take his former managers to court alleging mismanagement. Nicolas Cage sued his former business manager seeking US$20m for alleged mismanagement in 2009 and the manager in a countersuit cited the actor’s spending for his financial troubles. The case was resolved before trial.