Johnny Depp Opens Up About Abusive Childhood and Hollywood Fallout: ‘She Taught Me How Not To Raise Kids’

In a deeply candid interview with The Telegraph, Johnny Depp has revealed harrowing details of his violent and emotionally abusive upbringing, while also reflecting on the personal and professional battles that threatened to derail his career.

Now 62, the Pirates of the Caribbean star spoke openly about the torment he endured at the hands of his late mother, Betty Sue Palmer, who passed away in 2016. “She beat me with a f-cking stick, a f-cking shoe, an ashtray, a phone, it didn’t matter, man,” Depp disclosed. Yet, strikingly, he expressed a form of gratitude, saying, “But I thank her for that.”

Depp shared that his mother’s cruelty shaped his own approach to fatherhood, explaining, “She taught me how not to raise kids. Just do the exact opposite of what she did.” Depp, who has two children—Lily-Rose, 26, and Jack, 23—with former partner Vanessa Paradis, clearly views his traumatic past as a guide for breaking the cycle.

Childhood Trauma: Physical and Psychological Abuse

The actor first revealed these painful experiences during his widely publicized 2022 $100 million defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard. On the stand, Depp described a childhood devoid of safety or security: “The only thing to do was stay out of the line of fire.”

He recounted the unpredictability and cruelty of his mother, recalling that the family lived in a motel for nearly a year after moving from Kentucky to Florida. “Physical violence, physical abuse. That was a constant,” Depp said. “We were all somewhat shell-shocked. She’d walk past, you’d shield yourself because you didn’t know what would happen.”

Depp detailed the shocking forms the violence took: “An ash tray being flung at you, or you’d get beat with a high-heeled shoe, or a telephone, or whatever’s handy.”

Yet, it was the verbal and psychological abuse that left the deepest scars. “The verbal abuse, the psychological abuse, was almost worse than the beatings,” he explained. “The beatings were just physical pain. The physical pain, you learn to deal with. You learn to accept it. You learn to deal with it.”

Hollywood Fallout and Defiance

Depp also reflected on the abrupt end of his role as Gellert Grindelwald in the Fantastic Beasts franchise. Although he had filmed scenes for The Crimes of Grindelwald in 2018, he said the decision to remove him was sudden and shocking. “It literally stopped in a millisecond,” he said. “They said we’d like you to resign. But what was really in my head was they wanted me to retire.”

Refusing to be sidelined, Depp’s response was defiantly blunt: “F-ck you. There’s far too many of me to kill. If you think you can hurt me more than I’ve already been hurt, you’re gravely mistaken.”

Personal Betrayals Amid Legal Battles

Depp has also opened up about feeling betrayed during his highly publicized legal battles with Heard. In a recent interview with The Sunday Times, he revealed feeling “deserted” by three of his closest friends—people who once celebrated with his children but ultimately turned their backs on him.

“I’ll tell you what hurts. There are people, and I’m thinking of three, who did me dirty. Those people were at my kids’ parties, throwing them in the air,” he said. Still, Depp showed understanding for others’ hesitations: “I understand people who could not stand up [for me] because the most frightening thing to them was making the right choice.”

Vindication and Moving Forward

Despite the personal and professional turmoil, Depp found vindication after winning the 2022 defamation trial, describing the verdict as life-changing: “The jury gave me my life back.”

His candid reflections reveal a man shaped by hardship and betrayal but still fighting to reclaim his identity, career, and peace of mind.