Hollywood’s history is filled to the brim with celebrity power couples . These dynamic duos help to define our respective generations, giving us something to hope and cheer for.
Back in the early ’90s, no celebrity power couple was ever as talked about as Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder . Now, nearly 30 years after the demise of their star-crossed relationship, here is everything you need to know about Johnny and Winona’s past relationship .
Celebrity power couples help to define generations.
Nowadays, we think of power couples like Beyoncé and Jay-Z or perhaps more recently JLo and Ben Affleck. But back in the early ’90s — it was all about Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder.
Johnny and Winona first met at a New York City film premiere, back in 1989.
The way that Johnny tells the story, it truly was love at first sight. ” I was getting a Coke ,” Depp told Rolling Stone . “It was a classic glance, like, the zoom lenses in West Side Story , and everything else gets foggy.”
Johnny and Winona fell hard and fast for one another.
Before meeting Johnny in person, Winona had him pegged for a big-headed movie star. ” I thought maybe he would be a jerk ,” she said to Rolling Stone . “I didn’t know. But he was really, really shy.”
Less than six months after their first encounter, they were already engaged to be married
“I’m being really honest with you when I say that there’s been nothing ever throughout my twenty-seven years that’s comparable to the feeling I have with Winona ,” Depp said.
In 1990, Johnny and Winona starred opposite one another in Tim Burton’s classic tale of tortured love — ‘Edward Scissorhands’.
The film was both a critical as well as a commercial success, raking in over $53 million at the box office against a budget of $20 million USD.
Johnny was so in love with Winona that he decided to get a tattoo that read “Winona Forever.”
Unfortunately, as is often the case, the ink on Johnny’s arm wound up outliving the love he had in his heart. In 1993, the couple called off the engagement and separated.
When asked why he and Winona weren’t able to make their love last, Johnny blamed the media.
“It’s very hard to have a personal life in this town,” Johnny lamented to The Los Angeles Times . My relationship with Winona was my mistake to be as open as we were .”
Winona took the breakup especially hard. So much so, that it nearly cost the young actress her life.
” I was very depressed after breaking off my engagement with Johnny,” she told Cinema.com. “I was embarrassingly dramatic at the time, but you have to remember I was only 19 years old.”
Winona’s dramatics got so out of hand that she “Fell asleep with a lit cigarette, and woke up to the flames.”
” I haven’t visited that dark side since ,” Winona proudly proclaimed. “That was what you might say my ‘wake-up call.”
Not wanting to have a permanent reminder of his failed attempt at marriage, Johnny decided to remove his “Winona Forever” tattoo.
In true Johnny Depp fashion, he had a tattoo artist change the ink from “Winona Forever” to ” Wino Forever .”
While making an appearance on ‘Australia Tonight’, Johnny was asked whether or not he regretted getting the tattoo in the first place.
“These tattoos, for me — are a journal. I wear my journal. Even though we’re not together anymore, it doesn’t take away the honesty of the moment when I got the tattoo,” Johnny said.
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Both Johnny and Winona eventually moved on and found love elsewhere, although Winona herself has never been married.
When asked by Net-a-Porter’s The Edit why she never managed to make it down the aisle, Winona said that she’d ” Rather never have been married than been divorced a few times.”
Depp certainly feels otherwise, having been married/divorced from Vanessa Paradis and most recently — Amber Heard.
In 2016, Amber Heard obtained a restraining order against Johnny, after she accused him of domestic abuse. She then wrote an op-ed in 2018, wherein she referred to herself as a survivor of domestic abuse .
Winona was asked by ‘Time’ magazine to give her thoughts on the allegations being thrown at her former flame’s feet.
“I can only speak from my own experience, which was wildly different than what is being said ,” Winona began.
“He was never, never that way toward me,” Winona said emphatically.
“Never abusive at all toward me,” the Stranger Things star reiterated. “I only know him as a really good, loving, caring guy who is very, very protective of the people that he loves .”