Johnny Depp © Joe Alvarez
0 3 mins 7 yrs

The Pirates Of The Caribbean actor Johnny Depp, 54, is suing his business managers for  £22 million, claiming they mishandled his earnings over almost two decades.

But an email exchange disclosed yesterday appears to show that Depp was being warned to curtail his spending as long ago as 2009. He is said to have replied: “What else can I do??? You want me to sell some art??? you want me to sell something else??? sure … what??? “I got bikes, cars, property, books, paintings, and some semblance of a soul left. Where would you like me to start???”

Depp was replying to an email sent in December 2009 by his then-business manager Joel Mandel. It has been filed as evidence by lawyers in Los Angeles superior court. Mr Mandel wanted Depp to “take it easy” with holiday spending. Depp replied the next day to say he was lined up to get £16 million for The Tourist, £27.5 million for Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and another £16 million for Dark Shadows.

“I am doing my very best on holiday spending, but there is only so much I can do, as I need to give my kiddies and famille [sic] as good a Christmas as possible, obviously within reason,” Depp wrote, according to the court file.

He also said “the last proper paycheck was Public Enemies”, referring to the gangster thriller he filmed in 2008. His lawsuit claims that The Management Group and its owners, Joel and Robert Mandel, “actively concealed the true state of Mr Depp’s finances while driving him deeper and deeper into financial distress”.

The correspondence included in the filing shows Depp’s accounts were overdrawn by more than £3 million in late 2009 and that he was on the verge of a deal to borrow £1.5 million from a bank in 2015, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The Mandels filed a countersuit last January, claiming that the company “did everything within its power over the last 17 years to protect Depp from himself and to keep Depp financially solvent”.

They insist they never mismanaged Depp’s earnings, arguing the star is in fact responsible for his OWN financial problems thanks to ultra-extravagant spending- think everything from garages stacked with Hollywood memorabilia to a chain of islands in the Bahamas.