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.
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.
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."
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."
"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.
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.
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.
"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."
"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."
"I haven't visited that dark side since," Winona proudly proclaimed. "That was what you might say my 'wake-up call."
In true Johnny Depp fashion, he had a tattoo artist change the ink from "Winona Forever" to "Wino Forever."
"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.
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."
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.
"I can only speak from my own experience, which was wildly different than what is being said," Winona began.
"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."
