Johnny Depp celebrates his 50th birthday
Johnny Depp, who celebrates his 50th birthday today, was hailed as the world’s sexiest man, but he still has not achieved the stable home life he longed for.
Sources told The Sunday People part of it is that Johnny Depp always acts like a teenager with women, rather than a middle-aged dad of two.
And his psyche must owe a lot to a childhood in which his volatile parents uprooted him 30 times in 15 years.
Johnny Depp has loved and lost some of the world’s most beautiful women, including British supermodel Kate Moss.
He was shattered when his 14-year relationship with French singer Vanessa Paradis, 40, ended last year.
Yet Johnny Depp soon fell into the arms of bombshell actress Amber Heard, 27. He is already calling the beauty his soulmate and talking of marriage.
But friends are saying it is a relationship that won’t last. Old schoolmate Yves Bouhadana said: “Johnny falls in love at first sight. When he falls for a girl he really falls for her.”
Yves Bouhadana, who was in a teenage band with Johnny Depp and is still friends with him, added: “He wears his heart on his sleeve. He’s is a genuinely nice guy.
“He doesn’t act around his friends. What you see is what you get.”
Johnny Depp is worth more than $350 million and his agents can command $20 million for a film role.
But his childhood was far from idyllic. He was the youngest of four and witnessed constant rows between his dad John, an engineer, and waitress mum Betty Sue. When the family moved from Kentucky to Florida all of them lived at first in a single motel room.
They moved on average every six months and young Johnny constantly changed schools. The marriage unraveled slowly and painfully and by the time Johnny Depp was 13 he was smoking d**e, drinking heavily and deliberately cutting his arms to hurt himself.
Talking later about his marks, Johnny Depp said: “My body is a journal, in a way. Every important event is marked there.”
His parents’ marriage ended when he was 15.
Johnny Depp’s first and most lasting love was music. His mother bought him a guitar for his 13th birthday and he spent hours learning to play.
He made friends with a group of like-minded boys, including Yves Bouhadana, and they formed heavy metal bands.
They discovered groupies and Johnny Depp lost his virginity in the back of a van after a concert at a school.
He described it as “forgettable” and it even put him off casual s**.
While band mates picked up all the girls, Johnny Depp concentrated on his music. Then he fell head over heels in love with make-up artist Lori Anne Allison after a 1980 gig in Florida. He was 17 and she was 22. He proposed marriage almost immediately but they did not tie the knot until Christmas Eve 1983, in Miami. Johnny Depp was 20.
Johnny Depp, who celebrates his 50th birthday today, was hailed as the world’s sexiest man, but he still has not achieved the stable home life he longed for
Yves Bouhadana, now a 49-year-old sales executive living in Ohio, recalled: “She was absolutely beautiful. Still is.”
“Lori was his first serious relationship and he couldn’t wait to marry her. She is a very private person and doesn’t like to talk about the marriage. They are still friends.
“That’s the great thing with Johnny. He hasn’t changed since we were at school. We all still get together.”
Johnny Depp wanted to make it as a rock guitarist and Lori Anne Allison supported him as a make-up artist when they moved to Hollywood with his band The Kids.
But musical success and happiness eluded him. The Kids opened for the Ramones, Iggy Pop, The Pretenders and Talking Heads but the band failed to get a record deal and his marriage fell apart within two years. Biographer Cristopher Heard said: “It ended just simply because of the stress of failure.”
Johnny Depp and Lori Anne Allison were evicted from several apartments and were divorced in 1985. But Lori Anne Allison had introduced him to actor Nicolas Cage and the two became mates. Nicolas Cage persuaded him to get an agent.
Success came quickly with a memorable role in 1984’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, which became an unexpected hit.
Soon Johnny Depp was engaged to Twin Peaks beauty Sherilyn Fenn but they split after two years, blaming work commitments.
Never on his own for long, Johnny Depp dated Dirty Dancing’s Jennifer Grey and – following a familiar pattern – proposed.
But that relationship also lasted only two years and Johnny Depp quickly hooked up with fiancée No4 Winona Ryder, his co-star in 1990’s Edward Scissorhands.
Work got in the way again and after splitting from Winona Ryder he moved on to Kate Moss.
Kate Moss was 23, a supermodel, and he was a 33-year-old film star. The relationship was volatile. Johnny Depp once caused $10,000 damage to his New York hotel room after a row with Kate Moss.
And he was devastated when they broke up in 1998 after four years together.
Johnny Depp said: “I cried for a week after we split. I didn’t give her the attention I should have done. I was a horrific pain in the butt to live with. I’m a total moron at times. I let my work get in the way.
“I will never let it happen again. I think you could say I have truly discovered the meaning of loneliness.”
But within weeks Johnny Depp was spotted out with Vanessa Paradis. And three months later she was pregnant. Their daughter Lily-Rose Melody Depp was born in 1999 and the couple’s son John Christopher “Jack” Depp III came along in 2002.
With homes in France and the Bahamas, they looked settled. But in the later years Johnny Depp started to spend more time working in Hollywood and the split from Vanessa Paradis was announced in June 2012.
True to form he quickly sought solace with Amber Heard. His frends said Johnny Depp was once again acting like a teenager in love. The pair had two bust-ups in the early stages but have since calmed down.
One friend said: “Johnny always goes overboard with women. He has whisked Amber off to his island in the Bahamas and has already introduced her to his children. When they’re apart he sends her poetry. It is very sweet but everyone worries about him getting hurt again.”
This weekend there are several 50th birthday celebrations for Johnny Depp.
Rolling Stone Keith Richards insisted on being there with Johnny Depp and Amber Heard to toast his pal’s landmark.
The friendship began after Johnny Depp revealed he modeled his Pirates of the Caribbean character Jack Sparrow on Keith Richards, 69.
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