Johnny Depp reflected on raising his children, Lily-Rose, 26, and Jack, 23, in a candid new interview.
The actor, 62, opened about fleeting fatherhood in a profile with the Times of London on Saturday, June 21, questioning, “years get away from us, don’t they?”
“Oh man, my kids growing up in the south of France in their youth? I was Papa. I cannot tell you how much I loved being Papa,” Depp said, mentioning the estate he shared with Lily-Rose and Jack’s mother and his ex, Vanessa Paradis. The family moved to Los Angeles, and Depp said he simply became “Dad.”
“Then, suddenly, Papa was out the window. I was Dad,” he added. “But Papa was awesome and I’m getting old enough for Papa to possibly come back. Some motherf***er’s going to have to call me Papa!”
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Depp is looking forward to welcoming grandchildren one day, noting that he’s envious of those who still have young children at home. “I’m of the empty-nest syndrome,” he said.
The Pirates of the Caribbean star also showed off a portrait he created of Lily-Rose when she was a child. (She is now an actress herself.) “I never finished it,” Depp said. “She was 10 then, and 25 now.”
While reflecting on parenting, he was reminded of the security and comfort he felt while in a 14-year relationship with Paradis, 52, whom he split from in 2012.
“Truly, the first time I felt I had a home was the place in the south of France where Vanessa and I raised the kiddies. That’s the only place that ever felt like home,” he said. (He now bounces between the Bahamas and London.)
Depp also opened up about the fallout from his legal battle with ex-wife Amber Heard, who filed for divorce in 2016 and subsequently obtained a temporary restraining order after accusing Depp of domestic violence.
Depp denied Heard’s allegations and later sued the U.K. newspaper The Sun after they referred to him as a “wife beater” in a 2018 article. He lost the case two years later amid a separate trial in the U.S. where Depp claimed that Heard’s Washington Post op-ed detailing her history of abuse — which did not mention him by name — negatively impacted his career. A jury ruled in Depp’s favor in June 2022, and the actor was awarded $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages. Heard, meanwhile, was awarded $2 million in compensatory damages for her counterclaim.
Paradis stood by her ex throughout the legal proceedings, sharing in a 2020 statement, “I have known Johnny Depp for more than 25 years. We’ve been partners for 14 years and we raised our two children together. Through all these years I’ve known Johnny to be a kind, attentive, generous, and non-violent person and father. I am aware of the allegations which Amber Heard has publicly accused Johnny of for more than 4 years now. This is nothing like the true Johnny I have known, and from my personal experience of many years, I can say he was never violent or abusive to me.”
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Depp told the Times that he lost a few close friends due to the legal drama, and that it “hurts.”
“There are people, and I’m thinking of three, who did me dirty,” he alleged, without mentioning anyone by name. “Those people were at my kids’ parties. Throwing them in the air. And, look, I understand people who could not stand up [for me], because the most frightening thing to them was making the right choice. I was pre-MeToo. I was like a crash test dummy for MeToo. It was before Harvey Weinstein.”
In 2023, Lily-Rose celebrated her father’s Cannes Film Festival return — during which he received a standing ovation for his biographical drama, Jeanne du Barry.
“I’m super happy for him,” she told Entertainment Tonight at the time. “I’m super excited and it’s so awesome that we get to do projects that we’re super proud of.”
Of advice he’s perhaps offered his daughter, Depp told the Times, “Sometimes kids say to me, ‘I want to be an actor, what’s your advice?’ And I say, ‘Don’t be!’ I know what’s coming for them. I was chucked on that road and the only advice that I can give is, ‘Don’t allow anyone to make you something you are not.’ They’ll want you to be a poster boy and it’s tempting — a lot of money. And if that’s the direction you want? Go for it. But don’t let anybody choose for you.”
