Johnny Depp’s lawyer has denied allegations that the star has made poor investment choices.
Depp, 53, is involved in a legal battle with his ex-managers, who have detailed his lavish lifestyle in court filings.
In January (17), the Pirates of the Caribbean star sued Joel and Robert Mandel and their The Management Group (TMG) company, alleging fraud and negligence and demanding $25 million in damages.
In a countersuit, his ex-advisers claimed the actor’s lifestyle cost him $2 million per month and that he spent $75 million on properties including a chain of islands in the Bahamas and a French chateau.
Lawyers for TMG also highlighted the star’s spending on his art collection, which includes works by Andy Warhol, Gustav Klimt and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Depp’s attorney Adam Waldman has now told People.com that the actor’s property investments were far from being impulse buys, and many of his client’s purchases had increased in value.
“What do Johnny Depp’s investments in real estate and art, which have appreciated wildly, have to do with a fraud case?” the lawyer said. “For example, the island in the Bahamas that he bought for $5.3 million is now worth many times that. Similarly, the chateau in France that he bought for single-digit millions is now on the market for $30 million, the Basquiat paintings that he bought for a few million were sold for $14 million, and on and on it goes.”
Depp alleges that after hiring new representatives he discovered TMG managers had failed to pay his taxes on time, collected $28 million in improper fees, and loaned out his money without authorization.
In their response, the Mandel brothers accused their former client of spending millions of dollars on frivolous purchases and employing a vast entourage, including a sound engineer paid to feed him his lines on film sets.
