Johnny Depp shares heartbreaking details about his abusive mother

Johnny Depp is reflecting on the childhood he spent, disclosing that his abusive late mother, Betty Sue Palmer, played a crucial role in teaching him insightful life lessons.

In a candid conversation with The Telegraph, the 62-year-old actor made bombshell claims about his mother, revealing that she physically abused him during his childhood.

"She beat me with a f****** stick, a f****** shoe, an ashtray, a phone, it didn’t matter, man," Depp shared.

The Pirates of the Caribbean star added, "But I thank her for that. She taught me how not to raise kids. Just do the exact opposite of what she did."

Despite experiencing an unpleasant childhood, Depp maintained a strong bond with his mother up until her death in 2016.

The Alice in Wonderland actor said his mother was "violent" and "cruel" during his childhood 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.

Depp alleged that his mom hit her children in their heads and "had the ability to be as cruel as anyone can be."

"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," he painfully recalled.

On the professional front, Johnny Depp is starring in a movie titled Day Drinker, which is expected to release in 2026, according to Variety.