Following Johnny Depp’s $25 million lawsuit last month against his former longtime business managers the Mandel Company for “gross mismanagement” of his affairs leading to the actor's troubled financial state, the company filed a cross-complaint on Tuesday in LA Superior Court.
“TMG [Mandel Company] did everything within its power over the last 17 years to protect Depp from himself and to keep Depp financially solvent,” the complaint says. “However, ultimately TMG did not have the power or ability to control Depp’s spending or his numerous other vices, or to force Depp to make wiser financial decisions.”
Depp claims Mandel has taken him for tens of millions of dollars and kept him in the dark about his financial condition, which he says he only became aware of in March of last year. Mandel, in its filing, states “that allegation is absurd and untrue.”
The 31-page countersuit notes a bevy of outrageous alleged spending by Depp that comes out to a rate of $2 million a month. Some of the high-priced spending Mandel claims includes $75 million to "acquire, improve, and furnish 14 residences;" $3 million to fulfill friend Hunter S. Thompson’s dream to have his ashes shot out of a cannon, following his death in 2005; full-time personal security and “45 luxury cars;” $10 million a year to support his entourage, friends, and family; and $30,000 a month alone on wine.
“For years, TMG repeatedly informed Depp and [personal manager/Depp’s sister Elisa Christie] Dembrowski and personal lawyer, Jake Bloom, that Depp was living beyond his means, and urged him to spend less and to sell certain expensive but unnecessary assets to repay loans and pay his taxes and living expenses,” the Mandel filing states.
