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Looking back. Johnny Depp has had several high-profile relationships and breakups throughout the years, which have remained poignant memories for many of his famous exes.

“The first big thing I acted in was Cheers – and my first love, little Johnny Depp, was waiting outside the door,” Sherilyn Fenn — who dated the Pirates of the Caribbean star between 1985 and 1998— told The Big Issue in September 2017. “I had to walk on and say three lines then leave. My body was shaking. I walked out to say my lines but I just wanted to run back into my boyfriend’s arms and run away.”

The Twin Peaks alum continued: “We were so young. I met him when I was 19 and he was 21. We went out for two-and-a-half years when we were just starting out in the business. He was very sweet. He was my first love.”

Upon Depp and Fenn’s eventual split, he moved on with the likes of Jennifer Grey, Kate Moss and Vanessa Paradis. The Kentucky native began dating Paradis in 1998, nearly 14 years before they announced their separation.

“Love is the strongest and most fragile thing we have in life,” the French model told Harper’s Bazaar in August 2012 amid the twosome’s split. “Nothing is ever for sure, but when something in love doesn’t work from the beginning, it’s never going to work. Don’t push it.”

Paradis, who shares daughter Lily-Rose and son Jack with the actor, further gushed about their initial connection. She continued to the outlet: “When you meet the love of your life, it’s just obvious and natural and easier. You keep learning all the time. Sometimes you could be in an unhappy relationship; you are very much in love with someone, but it’s making you unhappy and you think things can change and you can work it out.”

The Dark Shadows star later connected with Amber Heard on the set of 2009’s The Rum Diary. While the pair were married between 2015 and 2017, they have since been locked in a heated legal battle following their divorce proceedings. Depp sued the Texas native for defamation in response to a 2018 opinion article she penned for the Washington Post, in which she revealed that she was a survivor of domestic abuse. Though Heard did not name her former spouse in the op-ed, his team alleged there were parallels between Depp and the article’s claims.

“It’s not about Johnny. The only person who thinks it is about Johnny is Johnny,” the Aquaman actress said in her courtroom testimony in May 2022. “It’s about me and what happened to me.”
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for confidential support.

Scroll below to read what Depp’s exes have said about their relationships through the years:

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Knowing the ‘Truth’

“I believe in the truth, and I believe in fairness and justice,” Moss said during a July 2022 episode of “Desert Island Discs” on BBC Radio 4 of her decision to testify in Depp and Heard’s defamation suit. “I know the truth about Johnny. I know he never kicked me down the stairs. I had to say that truth.”

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Clarifying the Past

During her defamation trial, Heard claimed she heard rumors about Depp throwing Moss down the stairs. The model, for her part, testified in her ex-boyfriend’s defense that same month.

“We were leaving the room and Johnny left the room before I did. There had been a rainstorm. As I left the room, I slid down the stairs and I hurt my back,” the U.K. native recalled during a live video appearance in May 2022. “I screamed because I didn’t know what happened to me and I was in pain. He came running back to help me and carried me to my room and got me medical attention. He never pushed me, kicked me or threw me down any stairs.”

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A ‘Narrow’ Survival

“Unfortunately, all of this is real. I narrowly survived it, but I survived it,” Heard claimed in her court testimony in May 2022, referring to the allegations that Depp abused her, which he has denied. “I tried to protect Johnny — and the secret I tried hard to keep for five years.”

She continued: “I was scared and very conflicted because the person I was scared of was also the person I was in love with. I knew that if I didn’t, I’d likely not literally survive. I was so scared that it was going to end really badly for me, and I really didn’t want to leave him.”

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Jealous and Paranoid

The Dirty Dancing star and Depp dated for nine months beginning in 1989, which she chronicled in her Out of the Corner memoir.

“We ate, talked, drank Jack Daniel’s, laughed our asses off, took cigarette breaks midcourse. He was so ridiculously beautiful. And surprisingly open, funny, quirky and sweet,” Grey wrote of her first date with the actor via her autobiography. “He’d started missing his flights home to LA having overslept or, when he did come home, he’d be crazy jealous and paranoid about what I’d been up to while he was gone. I attributed his ill temper and unhappiness to him feeling miserable and powerless to get off [the TV series] 21 Jump Street.”

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Forever Type of Love

Fenn defended her “first love” amid his legal battle with Heard.

“When I love somebody truly, I do so for life. And I will continue to support JCD my first love at 19 ,” the Michigan native wrote via Instagram in May 2022. “I have not had many loves in my life and cherish our memories. I don’t care for your negative projections, I block quickly. Nor am I here to pass your messages along to him.”

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An ‘Inhuman’ Type of Beauty

“You have to understand, Johnny Depp, 1989 Johnny Depp, so beautiful, you’ve never seen a more beautiful … it’s almost inhuman,” Grey recalled during a May 2022 appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show.

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Young and in Love

“Finding your first love is an important part of everyone’s life. With Johnny it helped me, because as a young woman, for the first time, I had found real love,” the Gilmore Girls alum told The Big Issue in 2017. “It was with someone who was walking the same path, but even if he wasn’t, the love and the connection was strong enough – cooking meals, hanging out, laughing and crying. So it is more about that than the fact he is this well-known person now. I know him as a human not a movie star.”

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In His Corner

Amid Heard’s domestic abuse claims, Paradis defended her former partner.

“Johnny Depp is the father of my two children,” the singer reportedly wrote in a May 2016 letter published by TMZ. “He is a sensitive, loving and loved person, and I believe with all my heart, that these recent allegations being made are outrageous. …“In all the years I have known Johnny, he has never been physically abusive with me and this looks nothing like the man I lived with for 14 wonderful years.”

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Protective Partner

“I can only speak from my own experience, which was wildly different than what is being said,” the Stranger Things star — who dated Depp between 1989 and 1993 —  told Time in June 2016 after Heard’s allegations first made headlines. “He was never, never that way toward me. Never abusive at all towards me. I only know him as a really good, loving, caring guy who is very, very protective of the people that he loves.”

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An Unhappy Relationship

“Sometimes you could be in an unhappy relationship; you are very much in love with someone, but it’s making you unhappy and you think things can change and you can work it out,” Paradis told Harper’s Bazaar in 2012.

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So Many Tears

Depp was linked to Moss between 1994 and 1997.

“There’s nobody that’s ever really been able to take care of me. Johnny did for a bit. I believed what he said,” the supermodel told Vanity Fair in October 2012. “Like if I said, ‘What do I do?,’ he’d tell me. And that’s what I missed when I left. I really lost that gauge of somebody I could trust. Nightmare. Years and years of crying. Oh, the tears!”

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‘A Jealous Man’

Ellen Barkin, who dated Depp in the 1990s and worked with him on 1998’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, claimed he was “a jealous man” in a November 2019 deposition recorded for the actor’s defamation case against Heard. The Drop Dead Gorgeous star alleged that her ex once threw a wine bottle at her from across a hotel room. (Depp denied that claim during his libel trial against The Sun.)

“He was always drinking and smoking a joint,” Barkin claimed in her deposition, alleging that her ex-boyfriend displayed “demanding” and “controlling” behavior during their relationship. She also recalled an incident where he allegedly got “very, very angry” after he discovered a scratch on her back that he believed came from her “having sex with a person who hasn’t him.”