Depp, whose films have pulled in £2.7 billion globally and is said to have personally earned £489 million, is portrayed as an oddball; drug-soaked and surrounded by yes-men

Once he was the most magnificently cool anti-hero in Hollywood. At 55, though, he is drunk, broke and lonely.

Johnny Depp will surely come to regret the narcissistic impulse which led him to ask a Rolling Stone magazine journalist to come and spend a few days with him.

The resulting 10,000-word profile, published on Thursday, was intended to counter a long article about his disastrous finances in the Hollywood Reporter magazine, and to prove he is the victim of larcenous management.

Instead it reads like a long suicide note — to his career by a man now crippled by drink and drug abuse.

Depp, whose films have pulled in £2.7 billion globally and is said to have personally earned £489 million, is portrayed as an oddball; drug-soaked and surrounded by yes-men.

The intention was to explain that he was the innocent victim of a management team who fleeced him.

Instead, a picture is painted of a movie hero in freefall — drinking vodka for breakfast, smoking joint after joint and filled with self-pity and rage.

Coming hot on the heels of his ugly divorce from actress Amber Heard — who accused him of beating her and then withdrew the allegations — his descent into a hell of his own making appears complete.

Indeed the article’s author, Stephen Rodrick, observes that Depp seems to be living in a ‘decent facsimile’ of the last days of rock idol Elvis Presley.

He recounts how Depp sits at the top of a table, refilling his goblet with vintage red wine, with a packet of cannabis at one elbow and of tobacco at the other.

Indeed the article’s author, Stephen Rodrick, observes that Depp seems to be living in a ‘decent facsimile’ of the last days of rock idol Elvis Presley. He is pictured at the Kerrang Awards on June 21

This goes on, says Rodrick, for 72 hours.

At another point the actor talks about drinking vodka for breakfast, and weeping as he writes his memoir.

Depp appears to be only intermittently lucid, evangelising about how good quaaludes (a type of addictive painkiller) used to be.

He adds in a bizarre aside that narcotics could have helped to capture Osama Bin Laden. ‘Get a bunch of f****** planes, big f****** planes that spray s***, and you drop LSD.

You saturate the f****** place. Every single thing will walk out of their cave smiling, happy.’

The actor, Oscar-nominated three times, also plays rock music at high volume while his new manager covers his head with a cushion.

Depp appears to be only intermittently lucid, evangelising about how good quaaludes (a type of addictive painkiller) used to be. He is pictured playing in The Hollywood Vampires in Glasgow on June 19

(He explains that the satanic rocker Marilyn Manson is ‘such a good friend’.)

Depp has long boasted of his vampire lifestyle — rising at dusk and retiring at dawn — and this is exactly what the Rolling Stone writer finds.

Among the countless damaging revelations, Depp admits that he wears an ear-piece on set — a complete professional no-no for actors.

He says it is not to have lines fed to him, but to have sounds played which will elicit an emotional response.

Depp says: ‘I’ve got bagpipes, a baby crying and bombs going off. It creates a truth.

‘Some of my biggest heroes were in silent film. It had to be behind the eyes. And my feeling is, that if there’s no truth behind the eyes, doesn’t matter what the f****** words are.’

Among the countless damaging revelations, Depp admits that he wears an ear-piece on set — a complete professional no-no for actors

During the interview he makes a racist joke, which does not bear repeating.

He also talks about how much he misses the American rocker Tom Petty (who died after an accidental overdose of prescription pain medication) and his ‘buddy’ and drug-taking partner-in-crime Hunter S. Thompson (Depp played the journalist and author on screen).

The Rolling Stone interviewer notes that at times he is ‘incoherent’.

You have to wonder if any movie company will now be willing to have him front and centre in a movie marketing campaign — particularly when you add all of this to the spectre of alleged domestic abuse which still haunts him after his 2017 divorce.

Of course, part of Depp’s appeal has always been that he was mad, bad and dangerous to know.

Until the horrors of his divorce — when it was revealed that, high on ecstasy, he had sliced off the tip of his finger and written in blood on the wall — there was little sense of the flip side of his rock ’n’ roll lifestyle.

Here, though, it is exposed in full with a clearly unhappy Depp spitting defiance against those he feels he has wronged him.

Shockingly, he characterises his late mother Betty Sue (right) as a ‘bitch on wheels’ and ‘perhaps the meanest woman’ he has ever met

‘Are you here to hear the truth?’ he asks. ‘It’s full of betrayal.’

Shockingly, he characterises his late mother Betty Sue as a ‘bitch on wheels’ and ‘perhaps the meanest woman’ he has ever met. He then goes on to say that she was hooked on phenobarbital (a barbiturate) from the age of 12.

Most of his ire, though, centres on those who he blames for helping him to lose a fortune. In a nutshell, Depp says he was defrauded while his attention was elsewhere.

Most of his ire, though, centres on those who he blames for helping him to lose a fortune. In a nutshell, Depp says he was defrauded while his attention was elsewhere

He is suing The Management Group (TMG), run by his ex-business manager, Joel Mandel, and Mandel’s brother Robert for negligence, breach of fiduciary duty and fraud.

The amounts which are contested are jaw-dropping.

The suit claims that Depp’s sister Christi was given $7 million and his assistant, Nathan Holmes, $750,000, without his knowledge, and that he has paid the American taxman, the IRS, more than $5.6 million in late fees.

It also says TMG invested Depp’s money for its own purposes and returned it without profit. It is seeking more than $25 million from TMG, plus any additional damages the court sees fit.

On the other side, the Mandels deny all wrongdoing and are countersuing. They suggest Depp has a $2-million-a-month compulsory-spending disorder.

Famously, the Mandels have claimed that Depp spent $30,000 a month on wine and said in their filing: ‘Wine is not an investment if you drink it as soon as you buy it.’

Depp counters: ‘It’s insulting to say that I spent $30,000 on wine, because it was far more.’

In the same vein he denies spending $3 million on sending the ashes of Hunter S. Thompson into the sky with a cannon.

'It was not $3 million to shoot Hunter into the f****** sky, it was $5 million.’

There appears to be not a glimmer of recognition from the actor that any of this indicates spending at insane levels — and that he may be the culpable party.

He calmly concedes that he spent $7,000 on buying his then teenaged daughter a couch which she had seen on TV reality show Keeping Up With The Kardashians.

Even though he earned a staggering $300 million from the Pirates Of The Caribbean films, he never had more than six months of savings in the bank, according to TMG.

Depp is still living like a king. He spent Christmas at his villa in France, winter on his Bahamas estate and went back to his property in Hollywood in the spring.

Even though he earned a staggering $300 million from the Pirates Of The Caribbean films, he never had more than six months of savings in the bank, according to TMG

The role of his sister Christi, and how much power he gave her over his finances, looks likely to be a crucial one when the matter comes to trial in August.

Experts suggest that Depp’s legal fees in this complex matter will run into six figures. If he doesn’t win, it will be a hammer blow to his delicate bank balance.

Depp is self-pitying about the current state of affairs, and claims to be fighting for the sake of his children with actress Vanessa Paradis, Jack and Lily-Rose.

‘My son had to hear about how his old man lost all his money from kids at school, that’s not right,’ he said, adding: ‘I have never, ever in my life been the bully kid.

'I never went out of my way to hurt anybody. When I was a little kid, what I was taught was never f****** start a fight, but if somebody f****** tags you or invades your f****** world, finish the f****** fight.

‘To my mom’s exact words, “Lay them out with a f****** brick.” ’

It is at this point that readers will recall the gut-churning menace of that video — released during his divorce — of Johnny Depp swearing and slamming kitchen cabinets.

Coming hot on the heels of his ugly divorce from actress Amber Heard (left and right) — who accused him of beating her and then withdrew the allegations — his descent into a hell of his own making appears complete.

Actress Amber Heard said that he brutalised her and left her in fear of her life.

He did not deny that he had written on a mirror in blood and paint ‘Starring Billy Bob and Easy Amber’ while in a jealous fury.

Heard filed for divorce in 2016 after 15 months of marriage.

The couple married in February 2015 after first meeting on the set of 2011’s The Rum Diary.

She was later awarded $7 million in the divorce settlement, which she donated to charity.

After a dirty fight of four months, with numerous devastating leaks from her side, Amber Heard put her name jointly to a statement which ran: ‘There was never an intent of physical or emotional harm.’

She accepted the visibly bruised face and split lip which were seen when she first attended court was just part of a ‘volatile’ relationship.

She agreed that it was an ‘intensely passionate relationship always bound by love’. The case for a restraining order against Depp was dismissed with prejudice, meaning that she can never refile it.

Heard withdrew her claims that he was a wife-beater and he withdrew the suggestion that she was a gold-digger.

Depp says in the Rolling Stone interview he found the experience devastating: ‘I was as low as I believe I could have gotten.

The next step was: “You’re going to arrive somewhere with your eyes open and you’re going to leave there with your eyes closed.” I couldn’t take the pain every day.’

His solution? To go on tour with his band the Hollywood Vampires, and write a memoir while drinking vodka for breakfast.

He said: ‘I poured myself a vodka in the morning and started writing until the tears filled by eyes and I couldn’t see the page any more.

‘I kept trying to figure out what I’d done to deserve this. I’d tried being kind to everyone, helping everyone, being truthful to everyone.

'The truth is most important to me. And still all this happened.’

He has just finished filming the forthcoming Fantastic Beasts sequel in London, and is preparing to fight his management in court.

Another lawsuit is pending — this one was filed last month by two former bodyguards.

They say Depp overworked and underpaid them over an ‘intolerable’ two-year period.

The lawsuit alleges that they had to wipe drugs from Depp’s face while in a nightclub to stop other people from seeing them, and that they had to babysit the star’s children as he ‘spiralled’ into a ‘financial hurricane’.

Professionally, he seems oblivious to the ruin which he has brought upon himself.

He says that there is a French book, Happier Days, which he wants to make into a film and direct, about a man who loses his wife and checks into a care home while in his 40s.

Depp then muses about a remake of Titanic, filmed in a bathtub. He tells the interviewer: ‘That would be great, but Hollywood never takes risks any more.’

You suspect he must be pulling Rolling Stone writer Stephen Rodrick’s leg.

The last word should go to Rodrick. He observes: ‘During my London visit, Depp is alternately hilarious, shy and incoherent.

'The days begin after dark and run until first light. There is a scared, haunted look about him.

‘Despite grand talks about hitting the town, we never leave the house. As Depp’s mind leads us down various rabbit holes I often think of a line that he recited as the Mad Hatter in Alice In Wonderland: “Have I gone mad?” ’