When Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder broke up in 1993, the world was shocked. The pair were, by all accounts, one of Hollywood’s most adored it couples, announcing their engagement in 1990 after just five months of dating.
The pair ultimately called it quits in 1993 after four years of dating. At the time, Ryder was just 19 years old and battling the biggest heartbreak of her life, so understandably, she found the ordeal very difficult to process.
Fast forward three decades and the actress is still musing over the breakup, recently revealing just how hard she found it. Appearing on the cover of Harper’s BAZAAR‘s July 2022 digital issue, Ryder said that the fallout of their relationship was “my Girl, Interrupted real life.”
She is, of course, referring to the 2000 film in which she she starred and executive produced, which told the story of a young woman’s journey at a mental institution for similarly troubled young women.
In the same interview, Ryder credited the power of therapy, self-care and imagining herself as a young girl to get herself through the pain.
“I remember, I was playing this character who ends up getting tortured in a Chilean prison [in the 1994 film The House of the Spirits],” Ryder said. “I would look at these fake bruises and cuts on my face [from filming], and I would struggle to see myself as this little girl. ‘Would you be treating this girl like you’re treating yourself?'”
“I remember looking at myself and saying, ‘This is what I’m doing to myself inside.’ Because I just wasn’t taking care of myself.” Ryder continued, before revealing that Michelle Pfeiffer, who was her costar at the time for The Age of Innocence, gave her advice on working through heartbreak.
“I remember Michelle being like, ‘This is going to pass,'” Ryder explained. “But I couldn’t hear it. I’ve never talked about it. There’s this part of me that’s very private.”
Eleven years after her breakup from Depp, Ryder was arrested for shoplifting at Saks Fifth Avenue. Looking back, she believes the incident took a toll on her acting career, but also criticises the early 2000s for its harsh treatment of those in the limelight.
“I definitely retreated. I was in San Francisco. But I also wasn’t getting offers. I think it was a very mutual break,” she told the outlet. It’s so interesting when you look at the early aughts. It was a kind of cruel time. There was a lot of meanness out there… And then I remember coming back to L.A. and it was a rough time. And I didn’t know if that part of my life was over.”
Despite the heartbreak, Depp and Ryder still remain good friends to this day. Last year, Ryder expressed her interest in developing a second Edward Scissorhands film in a bid to help Depp’s career, which suffered greatly during allegations made against him from his ex-wife, Amber Heard.
In 2020, Page Six reported that Ryder defended Depp during his defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard in the UK, calling him a “good man” and saying she felt “very safe with him.”
“The idea that he is an incredibly violent person is the farthest thing from the Johnny I knew and loved,” she said in a statement then. “I cannot wrap my head around these accusations. He was never, never violent towards me. He was never, never abusive at all towards me. He has never been violent or abusive towards anybody I have seen.”
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