News / People
Johnny Depp Opens Up About Struggles with Alcohol
Like many of the young stars of Hollywood fame today Johnny Depp once struggled with alcohol and the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star recently opened up about the battles he had with addiction.
In a recent interview Depp recalled how he tried to handle the early days of fame saying “I would end up having to go places or do things that I didn't want to do, and it went against the grain. I would end up in these strange situations, making small talk with people I didn't particularly know. I literally had to be drunk to be able to speak and get through it.”
It was just outside of Depp’s club The Viper Room that actor River Phoenix overdosed on heroin and cocaine in 1993. While Depp was never charged with any criminal activity, he was accused of allowing drugs inside the club and inadvertently contributing to the death of Phoenix.
Depp hit headlines for his out of control behavior in hotels and run-ins with paparazzi while drunk. Reflecting on that period Depp said “I had a keen idea that it was not good at that point. But you get liquored up and then once you are in that spiral you don't even get hangovers any more. You wake up and have another drink.”
Much of Depp’s dependence upon alcohol came from a feeling of uneasiness in being labeled. His early success on the hit show "21 Jump Street" earned him teen idol status and the new found fame pushed him towards isolation through alocohol, “It was trying not to feel anything... My drug of choice back then was alcohol. It might have had the facade of being recreational, but even then I knew it wasn't.”
Eventually getting a handle on his life, Depp became involved with French actress Vanessa Paradis and the two have been together since 1998. The couple have a seven-year-old daughter Lilly-Rose and a four-year-old son Jack.
In an interview conducted last year Depp spoke of the transformation he has made and credited his children with much of the inspiration saying “You can't plan the kind of deep love that results in children. Fatherhood was not a conscious decision. It was part of the wonderful ride I was on. It was destiny; kismet. All the math finally worked.”
