Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder’s Relationship Timeline: From Costar Couple to Ex-Fiances

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Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder’s Relationship Timeline: From Costar Couple to Ex-Fiances

Blast from the past! Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder were one of the biggest couples of the early ‘90s — and their love story still captivates fans despite their split. The Pirates of the Caribbean actor and the Beetlejuice star met at a New York City film premiere in 1989, and according to Depp, it was love at first sight. “I was getting a Coke,” Depp recalled to the Rolling Stone in January 1991 of their first encounter. “It was a classic glance, like, the zoom lenses in West Side Story, and everything else gets foggy.” Within months, the actors were engaged and costarring in 1990’s Edward Scissorhands, which helped boost both of their careers. While Ryder was only 17 when she met Depp, she knew he was something special. "I had my first real relationship with Johnny, a fiercely deep love that I don't know that I'll ever [have again],” the Heathers star told Cinema.com in 2001. “The first love is like that isn't it? I don't know today. It was a real wild time back then." The twosome called off their engagement after three years. Following their breakup, Depp famously switched his “Winona forever” tattoo to “Wino forever.” He didn’t, however, regret getting his ex’s name inked on his body. “It’s no longer there. We’ve split up,” the 21 Jump Street actor said during a 1993 appearance on Australia Tonight. “I think these things, to me — these tattoos, for me — are a journal. I wear my journal. Even though we’re not together anymore, it doesn’t take away the honesty of the moment when I got the tattoo. I don’t regret that tattoo at all, in fact, it’s a part of my past.” The Stranger Things star and the Kentucky native each moved on since their split, but Ryder has never made it down the aisle. "I’m a serial monogamist,” the Girl, Interrupted actress told Net-a-Porter’s The Edit in July 2016. “I was single for a while and dating and … I just didn’t know how to do it! I’ve always been like that. … But marriage? I don’t know.” [jwplayer ZSJDS3dx-zhNYySv2] Ryder revealed that she’d “rather never have been married than been divorced a few times,” noting that her parents’ long marriage set a “really high standard.” The Minnesota native has been in a relationship with fashion designer Scott Mackinlay Hahn since 2011. Depp, for his part, was with Vanessa Paradis for 14 years before their 2012 split. The exes share two children: Lily-Rose and Jack. He went on to marry Amber Heard in 2015, but they split less than two years later. Heard accused Depp of domestic abuse in 2016, obtaining a temporary restraining order against him. After their divorce was finalized, she wrote an op-ed piece for The Washington Post in 2018 detailing her experience as a survivor — without using Depp’s name in he article. (The Sweeney Todd actor then sued his ex-wife in for defamation related to the piece and the trial began in April 2022.) “I can only speak from my own experience, which was wildly different than what is being said,” Ryder told Time magazine in June 2016. “He was never, never that way toward me. Never abusive at all toward me. I only know him as a really good, loving, caring guy who is very, very protective of the people that he loves.” During Depp’s libel trial in July 2020 — he unsuccessfully sued The Sun for slander amid abuse claims — Ryder again spoke out in favor of her ex-fiancé. “I truly and honestly only know him as a really good man — an incredibly loving, extremely caring guy who was so very protective of me and the people that he loves, and I felt so very, very safe with him,” she said in a statement read in court at the time. “I do not want to call anyone a liar but from my experience of Johnny, it is impossible to believe that such horrific allegations are true. I find it extremely upsetting, knowing him as I do.” Scroll down to relive Depp and Ryder’s relationship ups and downs: [podcast_block]

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1989

The duo first crossed paths at the New York premiere of Great Balls of Fire! A few months later, Depp and Ryder had their first date at Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont.

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1990

The Charlie and the Chocolate Factory actor proposed in July 1990 to Ryder five months after they began dating.

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1990

The twosome took their chemistry to the big screen, costarring in Edward Scissorhands.

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1991

“I’m being really honest with you when I say that there’s been nothing ever throughout my 27 years that’s comparable to the feeling I have with Winona,” Depp told the Rolling Stone in January 1991. “It’s like this weird, bounding atom or something. You can think something is the real thing, but it’s different when you feel it. The truth is very powerful.”

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1993

The duo called it quits in June 1993 after four years together.

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1993

Depp had his “Winona forever” tattoo changed to “Wino forever” shortly after their split in June 1993.

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1993

"It’s very hard to have a personal life in this town,” the Lone Ranger actor told the Los Angeles Times in December 1993. "My relationship with Winona, it was my mistake to be as open as we were, but I thought if we were honest, it would destroy that curiosity monster. Instead, it fed it, gave people license to feel they were part of it."

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2001

"It's really good to be able to think about past loves without having a pit in my stomach, or cringing or feeling heart-broken, or like they hate you,” the Little Women actress told Cinema.com.

However, Ryder confessed that she went through a hard time when she and Depp first broke up. “I was very depressed after breaking off my engagement with Johnny 10 years ago. I was embarrassingly dramatic at the time, but you have to remember I was only 19 years old,” she explained.

The Oscar nominee recalled being diagnosed with “anticipatory nostalgia” and prescribed sleeping pills, which — when combined with alcohol — took her to a dark place. "One night I fell asleep with a lit cigarette, and woke up to the flames,” she said. “I haven't visited that dark side since. That was what you might say my 'wake-up call.’"

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2009

"I had just done Dracula and Edward Scissorhands. I had just had my first real breakup, the first heartbreak," Ryder recalled of her life post-split during an interview with Elle UK. “I think it was really ironic because everybody else just thought I had everything in the world, you know, I had no reason to be depressed, everything was sort of at its peak but inside I was completely lost.”

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2016

The Plot Against America alum spoke out about Depp after he was accused by Heard of being abusive during their marriage. “I wasn’t there. I don’t know what happened,” Ryder told Time in June 2016 of Heard’s allegations, noting that Depp was “never” that way toward her. “I’m just saying, it’s difficult and upsetting for me to wrap my head around it.”

She added: “Look, it was a long time ago, but we were together for four years, and it was a big relationship for me. Imagine if someone you dated when you were — I was 17 when I met him — was accused of that. It’s just shocking. I have never seen him be violent toward a person before.”

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2020

Depp sued The Sun in 2018 for libel after the publication called him a “wife beater” following Heard’s prior accusations of abuse. Before the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them actor lost the case in fall 2020, Ryder spoke out on his behalf amid the trial.

“I understand that it is very important that I speak from my own experience, as I obviously was not there during his marriage to Amber, but, from my experience, which was so wildly different, I was absolutely shocked, confused and upset when I heard the accusations against him,” the Frankenweenie actress said in a statement in July 2020 via the Press Association.

Ryder continued: “The idea that he is an incredibly violent person is the farthest thing from the Johnny I knew and loved. I cannot wrap my head around these accusations. He was never, never violent toward me. He was never, never abusive at all towards me. He has never been violent or abusive toward anybody I have seen.”