Johnny Depp Says His Abusive Mom ‘Taught Me How Not to Raise Kids’: ‘I Thank Her for That’

“She taught me how not to raise kids. Just do the exact opposite of what she did,” said the actor

Johnny Depp in Rome on Oct. 26, 2024.

Johnny Depp is recalling how his childhood forever changed the way he would parent his kids.

In an interview with The Telegraph published Saturday, July 5, the 62-year-old Pirates of the Caribbean actor revealed more about how his late mom Betty Sue Palmer was physically abusive during his childhood.

“She beat me with a f—ing stick, a f—ing shoe, an ashtray, a phone, it didn’t matter, man,” said Depp.

“But I thank her for that.

She taught me how not to raise kids.

Just do the exact opposite of what she did.”

Despite the harrowing parts of his upbringing, the actor — who’s dad to daughter Lily-Rose, 26, and son Jack, 23, with ex Vanessa Paradis — was later close with his mother, who died in 2016 at age 81.

Lily-Rose Depp in Paris on Jan. 28, 2025; Johnny Depp in Cannes, France, on May 17, 2023; Jack Depp in Paris on May 21, 2020.Stephane Cardinale – Corbis/Corbis via Getty; Samir Hussein/WireImage; SplashNews.com

The actor previously shed light on his turbulent childhood while testifying during his defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard in April 2022.

Depp said Palmer was “violent” and “cruel” to him when growing up, to the point where he “tried to stay out of the line of fire” where she was concerned.

“The verbal abuse, the psychological abuse, was almost worse than the beatings.

The beatings were just physical pain.

The physical pain, you learn to deal with.

You learn to accept it.

You learn to deal with it,” he said.

Some of the violence she inflicted included throwing an ashtray, a high-heeled shoe or a telephone, Depp alleged, adding that she’d hit her children in their heads and “had the ability to be as cruel as anyone can be.”

The actor continued, “And when Betty Sue, my mother, would go off on a tangent toward my father — and of course, in front of the kids, it [didn’t] matter to her — he, amazingly, remained very stoic and never, as she was rationing him with horrible things, he stood there and just looked at her while she delivered the pain, and he swallowed it.

He took it.”

Johnny Depp and mom Betty Sue Palmer at the 76th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California, on Feb. 29, 2004.

One week earlier, Depp’s sister Christi Dembrowski testified in court about being abused by Palmer while growing up.

Said Dembrowski, 64, “She would hit us.

She would throw things.” When asked if Depp ever hit back at his mom when she was abusive, Dembrowski said no, “He never went to that place.”

“Really early on as a young child,” she said, “none of what was happening in our home felt good.

And so, as I got older, both Johnny and I actually, we decided that once we left, once we had our own home, we were never going to repeat, ever, anything similar in any way to our childhood.

We were gonna do it different.”

Palmer “softened” as she grew older, Dembrowski said.

She died in May 2016, just days before Heard, 39, filed for divorce from Depp.

If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org.

All calls are toll-free and confidential.

The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.