Johnny Depp's Net Worth: How Much Is The Actor Still Worth Today?

The following article includes mentions of domestic abuse allegations and drug use.

Johnny Depp has a fortune that would make Captain Jack Sparrow jealous. But his spending habits and legal war with ex-wife Amber Heard make matters complicated. Born in Kentucky but raised in Florida, the eccentric actor clawed his way to superstardom with his debut role as a fated teen in 1984's "Nightmare on Elm Street." But that slasher flick was only the beginning. In 1990, Depp had another slice at critical acclaim with director Tim Burton, playing the titular role in "Edward Scissorhands," showcasing his ability to capture darker characters. Depp teamed up with Burton again for 1999's "Sleepy Hollow," in 2005 for Burton's adaptation of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," and in 2007 for "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," proving Depp had vocal chops, too. But his most famous on-screen role would arguably be at sea.

Depp starred as Captain Jack Sparrow in the beloved 2003 family film "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," which sailed its way to $653 million worldwide, per Box Office Mojo. He also reprised his role as the film's boozy pirate for four sequels, two of which topped $1 billion globally. It's one of the 13 highest-grossing franchises of all time, per CNBC, with Depp once being one of Hollywood's highest-paid actors. But then the seas got choppy.

With such impressive earnings, it might come as a surprise that Depp's net worth, at the time of this writing, is an estimated $100 million, per Celebrity Net Worth. This is still impressive, but he's had a circuitous, often unfortunate, financial journey.

Johnny Depp set out to be a musician and became an actor by accident, just to pay the bills. His band, The Kids, took him from Florida to Los Angeles when he was 20, a move that the young rockers made in the hopes of making it big. While there, Depp met the then-unknown Nicolas Cage, who suggested that Depp connect with Cage's agent to get some acting parts, according to Rolling Stone.

Depp described his money situation at the time in court during his 2022 defamation case against ex-wife Amber Heard. "I was filling out job applications at any [place] ... video stores, clothing stores, anything just to be able to pay the rent," Depp said of his early financial state. Cage had told him, "I think you could be an actor," and soon connected Depp with his agent — and this fortuitous meeting landed Depp his part on the 1984 film "A Nightmare on Elm Street."

However, Depp admitted that he had no aspirations to become an actor. "I was a musician," he stated. "But the fact that these people were going to pay me what I found to be a ludicrous sum of money, which was kind of the SAG minimum. It was $1284 a week." Joking that he had "never seen that kind of dough before in [his] life," Depp described his transition from music to acting as a passive experience, saying, "I was placed on that road." Clearly, it wasn't necessarily his life's dream.

Johnny Depp and Kate Moss began dating in 1994 and quickly became one of the most high-profile couples of the decade — they also famously had an interesting and pricey experience while staying in London's Portobello Hotel. 

To ring in Moss' 32nd birthday, the pair reportedly purchased an extravagant amenity from the hotel: a bathtub filled with champagne, per the Independent. The cost for this service came to 750 pounds, or just shy of $1,000 U.S. dollars, and requires 36 bottles of champagne. The duo allegedly jumped in the tub once and then took off for dinner, whereupon a hotel cleaner drained the contents. The hotel management wouldn't confirm that it was Depp and Moss, though they did say those in question respectively worked in the acting and modeling industries.

Across the pond, Depp and Moss had a different, albeit more expensive, hotel experience. Depp was apparently angry about a dispute with a friend, per The U.S. Sun, destroyed the couple's New York hotel room, and had to pay damages worth $10,000. The incident came up years later in his libel case against The Sun after the outlet labeled him a "wife beater" following Amber Heard's abuse allegations. When asked by a lawyer if he avoided paying for the destruction, Depp testified: "No, sir. I actually told the security guard when he came to my room that I was more than willing to pay for everything I had broken." When asked where Moss was during the incident, Depp said, "She was in the bedroom sleeping."

While Johnny Depp didn't plan on acting as a career, he was obviously good at it, and his financial compensation did nothing but grow — the star didn't even need the gift of gab to rake in the money. On a 2018 compilation of actors who "got paid the most to say the least," according to USA Today, Depp appeared four times on a list of 15.

For his portrayal of Will Caster in the 2014 film "Transcendence," Depp made $10,633 per word and spoke 1,907 words. In "Edward Scissorhands," he banked $14,889 per word but only said 185 words in the entire film. For 2010's "The Tourist," Depp earned $19,209 per word, speaking 1,146 words throughout. (In perhaps a triumphant moment for women, co-star Angelina Jolie made $20,934 per each of her 999 words said on screen.) In Depp's highest ranking on this list, he made a whopping $66,606 per word for his role as the Mad Hatter in "Alice in Wonderland," with only 661 words spoken.

But it's not just Depp's pay per word that's been remarkable. He once made $1 million in a single week for his portrayal of The Wolf in the movie adaptation of "Into the Woods." Another secret to Depp's near-constant stream of income throughout his career, this quick but huge paycheck was actually part of a strategy by production companies called "boarding," in which high-profile actors take less than their usual pay but only have to be on set for a brief period of time, per The Hollywood Reporter.

Johnny Depp was already an acclaimed actor by the time he hit the major leagues and landed the role of Captain Jack Sparrow in the Disney franchise, "Pirates of the Caribbean," in 2003. The entire production was big money, and the fourth installment, 2011's "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides," holds the record for the most expensive movie ever made, its budget ringing in at $422 million. With so much money put into the films, Depp's salary was obviously huge, too. As Forbes wrote in 2014, it was rumored that Depp was paid $55 million for "On Stranger Tides." For 2017's "Dead Men Tell No Tales," a later publication by Forbes stated that Depp made $90 million. 

But despite these massive salaries, Depp's presence during filming "On Stranger Tides" was compromised by an infamous incident. The star allegedly took "eight ecstasy pills at once" during shooting, per The Hollywood Reporter, and in the resulting chaos, he later claimed in his 2020 libel case that then-wife Amber Heard threw a glass bottle at him, and part of his finger was cut off. Depp flew from Australia, where the film was being made, to Los Angeles to get medical attention. With Depp out of commission for a couple of weeks, the studio lost $350,000 daily as production was halted.

With Depp's marriage crumbling in front of the media and the complications around it, Disney didn't keep Depp for the next installment of "Pirates of the Caribbean," and instead opted to cast Margot Robbie in the lead role.

When money was coming in, Johnny Depp let his decadent taste in real estate run wild. In 1995, he bought a home in Hollywood Hills for $1.8 million, which was situated on a large eucalyptus grove, according to The U.S. Sun. By 2021, the property was valued at $19 million. Depp also nabbed a Los Angeles penthouse located in the Eastern Columbia Lofts in 2002, per Architectural Digest. The actor seemed to like the idea of owning apartments in the city, because he ended up purchasing all five available penthouse apartments in the building — a one-bedroom penthouse and four two-bedroom apartments — as The Wall Street Journal reports. While a real estate agent noted that Depp would roam from one apartment to the next "like rooms in a home," he listed them all for a grand total of $12.78 million in 2016.

Depp's most famous residency, however, was a small French village in Provence. It had previously been a ghost town, but when Depp — along with then-girlfriend Vanessa Paradis — purchased the location, he spent $10 million restoring the area, according to Homes & Gardens. Long after their split, Depp listed the village for $55 million.

However, he also apparently bought a private island in the Bahamas, dubbed Little Hall's Pond Cay, in 2004 for $3.6 million after seeing it while filming the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie. Furthermore, following his engagement with Amber Heard, Depp dropped roughly $16 million on an estate in Somerset, England in 2014, per the Daily Mail.

In 2017, Johnny Depp made headlines for his seemingly outlandish spending habits, as revealed during a legal rift with his prior business managers, The Management Group. Per Vanity Fair, when the nitty gritty of his spending came to light, it was reported that Depp dropped over $2 million a month and had spent in excess of $75 million on his residencies, including decor and renovations, throughout his 17 years with the company. He also bought and renovated a yacht, apparently spending $18 million on the vessel.

The report also claimed that he spent $30,000 on wine every month, as well as a whopping $3 million to shoot literary hero and friend Hunter S. Thompson's ashes from a cannon. However, in a 2018 interview with Rolling Stone, Depp clarified how much he actually spent on his monthly alcohol allowance. "It's insulting to say that I spent $30,000 on wine," he said. "Because it was far more." This wasn't the only correction that Depp made: the cannon shot was also more than previously estimated. "By the way, it was not $3 million to shoot Hunter into the f***ing sky," the star added. "It was $5 million."

Other major monthly expenses for Depp allegedly included $150,000 for security for his two kids and $300,000 to pay his staff. While Depp has occasionally been criticized for some of his more head-scratching spending, he defended himself to The Wall Street Journal in 2017, saying, "It's my money. If I want to buy 15,000 cotton balls a day, it's my thing."

Johnny Depp put his trust in The Management Group to take charge of his finances, a company created by Joel and Robert Mandel in 1987, per The Hollywood Reporter. After earning over $650 million dollars throughout his acting career, Depp had surprisingly found himself in a position where he couldn't afford his monthly costs. Initially, the star responded to this by selling some of his property, but in 2017, he sued his business managers at TMG for $25 million, claiming in the suit that he had "lost tens of millions of dollars and has been forced to dispose of significant assets to pay for TMG's self-dealing and gross misconduct" (via E! News).

The news of his financial woes was, per Vanity Fair, completely shocking to Depp, and he explained why he was so blindsided. "I'm not a lawyer," the actor began. "I'm not an accountant. I'm not qualified to help my 15-year-old son with his math homework. ... I've always trusted the people around me." As a result, Depp had to borrow millions to cover his debts.

TMG then counter-sued Depp for allegedly failing to pay due commissions, claiming that the actor was "responsible for his own financial waste" (via The Hollywood Reporter). In a statement released to E! News, the company called Depp's lawsuit "a complete fabrication," adding that "they did everything possible to protect Depp from his irresponsible and profligate spending" over his 17 years with TMG.

Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis met in Paris in 1998, and it was love at first sight. "She was wearing a dress with an exposed back and I saw that back and that neck, and then she turned around and I saw those eyes, and — boom!" Depp told the Daily Mail. "My life as a single man was done."

The couple welcomed two children together — Lily-Rose and Jack — and the family traveled the world, spending time in their many residences, including the above-mentioned yacht called the Vajoliroja, which Depp purchased and named after Paradis, per Us Weekly. After 14 years together, Depp and Paradis parted ways, with Depp telling Rolling Stone how he was often away for work, which created a challenge. "It wasn't easy on her," he said. "It wasn't easy on me. It wasn't easy on the kids."

The duo famously never got married, but when they broke up, Depp gave Paradis $150 million, according to The Sun (via Hollywood Life). At the time, Depp reportedly had $300 million to his name, and since they had no marital contract, Paradis would have had to pursue a settlement through court. However, to avoid that conflict, Depp simply gave her half of his fortune. The amicability of the split centered largely around their kids, as Depp explained to Rolling Stone: "It doesn't stop the fact that you care for that person, and they're the moth­er of your kids, and you'll always know each other, and you're always gonna be in each other's lives because of those kids."

Johnny Depp played the wizard Gellert Grindelwald in the "Fantastic Beasts" series, spearheaded by J.K. Rowling. He appeared in the first two films of the "Harry Potter" spinoff franchise, and when fans spoke up about concern following Amber Heard's allegations of abuse, Rowling defended her stance to keep him in the movies. Despite claiming to understand people's worry, she stated (via Variety) that "based on our understanding of the circumstances, the filmmakers and I are not only comfortable sticking with our original casting, but genuinely happy to have Johnny playing a major character in the movies."

However, when shooting on the third film, 2021's "Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore," kicked off, Depp had only filmed a single scene before Warner Bros. asked him to resign. As Variety pointed out, new management in WarnerMedia reportedly had less interest in keeping controversial actors on their projects, and Depp had just lost his libel lawsuit against The Sun over its "wife beater" label. In a statement posted on Instagram in November 2020, Depp said that he "respected and agreed to [Warner Bros.'] request" to exit the series. Noting that he aimed to prove himself innocent in light of the abuse allegations from Amber Heard, Depp added, "My life and career will not be defined by this moment in time." 

Despite the resignation and the vacant role being quickly filled by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen, Depp still received the entire $16 million of his salary, per Vanity Fair.

Johnny Depp's contentious 2017 divorce from Amber Heard, the resulting lawsuits stemming from their back-and-forth allegations of domestic abuse, and Heard's 2018 op-ed piece written for The Washington Post — in which she claimed to be a survivor of domestic abuse, albeit without mentioning Depp's name — essentially flipped his entire career on its head. 

In his 2022 defamation court case against Heard, Depp alleged that the aftermath of such accusations meant he was dropped from several of his long-term projects. "I don't think it took Disney very long, maybe a couple of days, to announce that I had been removed from the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' films franchise," he testified (via Geo News). Noting that it was then that he understood that his entertainment prospects were forever altered, Depp added, "I lost nothing less than everything. I will live with that for the rest of my life because of the allegations." Considering how the case would bring with it global attention, the actor conceded that he would "lose then no matter the outcome of this trial." 

As crisis PR representative Eric Schiffer once explained to The Hollywood Reporter, Depp's complex history of excessive drug and alcohol use has also reportedly created havoc in his career. "He has suffered immense carnage to his reputation from a reckless set of choices that has left him in septic muck," Schiffer said. "Can he come out of that? It really comes down to Johnny's choices." Whether he does or not will also, of course, only further impact the figure of Depp's net worth.

If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.