Here's Why Johnny Depp Has Had A Crazier Year Than Most

It’s been a pretty strange and eventual 2016 for one of Hollywood’s highest earners. In the last 12 months, Johnny Depp has battled irate Australian politicians, gotten divorced, been accused of domestic violence, gone on tour with his rock band and then starred in one of the biggest films of the year.

2016 got off on a bad foot for Depp as a court case regarding an incident that occurred in April 2015, in which his wife Amber Heard brought their two pet terriers, Pistol and Boo, into Australia in breach of the country’s biosecurity laws as she was meeting up with him on the set of the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie on the Gold Coast. She was charged with two counts of smuggling the dogs, and one count of producing a false document.

It was a case that was to rumble on, but which came to an entertaining conclusion in nearly a year later and threatened to completely eclipse his appearance in Alice Through the Looking Glass, one of the few movies Depp actually released this year.

One of the final times Amber Heard & Johnny Depp were seen in public together

In late 2015, he had already triggered a war of words with the Australian agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce by referring to him in pretty unfriendly terms at a press conference for Black Mass. Asked about what had happened to his pets, he joked that he had “killed his dogs and ate them… under direct orders from some kind of sweaty big-gutted man from Australia.”

In April 2016, after another amusing exchange in which he said that Joyce looked as if he had “inbred with a tomato”, Depp and Heard helped get themselves off the hook when they starred in a hilariously awkward and obviously insincere ‘apology video’. The smuggling charges were dropped but Heard was given a $1,000 fine over the false documents.

More: Why Amber Heard hasn’t been able to donate Johnny Depp’s divorce money to charity

Shortly after that, things went seriously wrong for Depp when it was announced that his 15-month marriage to 30 year Heard, nearly 23 years his junior, was over. Almost immediately, he was then accused of having verbally and physically abused her as Heard applied for a restraining order against him.

Heard’s friend and a neighbour stepped forward as witnesses and provided photographic evidence, but as the case rumbled on with Depp’s friends stepping in to support him and claiming that Heard was trying to secure a better financial settlement by alleging abuse, it reached a stalemate in August 2016 as the divorce was settled with a $7 million payment to Heard, which she pledged to donate to two charities, and the restraining order request being dropped.

Johnny performing on stage in Sweden

Johnny's released few movies this year, the main one being James Bobin's 'Alice Through the Looking Glass'

Johnny's concentrated mainly on his music this year

In all that time, Depp pretty much dropped off the radar as he went on tour with his all-celebrity band Hollywood Vampires (alongside Alice Cooper and Aerosmith’s Joe Perry).

Finally, 2016 brought some decent press for him as it was announced that he would be playing a significant role in the sequel to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in the near future. He made a fleeting cameo appearance as the dark wizard Grindelwald when it was released this November to massive box office figures.

One can only presume that 2017 is going to be more stable for Johnny Depp!

Johnny with rock legends Joe Perry and Alice Cooper who also play in Hollywood Vampires