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Johnny Depp Defiantly Brags About Spending $5 Million On Cannon Used For Hunter S. Thompson’s Ashes

By Rob Cotton
Published on: 07:40 PST, Apr 27, 2017

Johnny Depp has been the subject of much scrutiny in recent months for the alleged extravagance of his personal spending habits. Embroiled in a two-way lawsuit with his former management team, The Management Group, one of the charges made by his former managers is that Depp carelessly, in their view, spent over $3 million dollars on a custom-made cannon used to shoot the ashes of legendary journalist Hunter S. Thompson into the air at Thompson’s funeral. According to the Guardian, the idea to have his ashes fired from a cannon was Thompson’s, and Johnny Depp was happy to provide the necessary funding to make his late friend’s funeral wish a reality.

“All I’m doing is trying to make sure his last wish comes true,” Depp said at the time. “I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out.”

The cannon firing ceremony was attended by Hunter S. Thompson’s close friends and family members, including Thompson’s wife Anita and celebrities such as Jack Nicholson, John Cusack, Bill Murray, Benicio del Toro, Sean Penn, and Ralph Steadman, the artist who worked with Thompson on a number of projects, including the illustrations for Thompson’s classic novel, Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas. Johnny Depp famously played Thompson in the movie version of that novel. Depp and Thompson became close friends after Depp spent time hanging out with Thompson in preparation for the role. Depp later reprised his role as Hunter S. Thompson in a movie version of Thompson’s first novel, The Rum Diary. The novel was written before Thompson rose to fame as the inventor of “Gonzo journalism,” a style of reporting that eschews classic calls for objectivity in journalism and instead places the author at the center of the story. The Rum Diary was not published until years later when Depp found it while searching through old boxes at Thompson’s home outside Bouler, Colorado.

Details of the ceremony were not made public until January of this year when The Management Group filed a countersuit against Depp’s initial lawsuit against them for mismanaging his finances. According to the Hollywood Reporter, in addition to the alleged $3 million spent on the customer cannon for Hunter S. Thompson,s funeral, Johnny Depp was also accused of spending over $30,000 per month on wine. The countersuit alleges that Depp spends more than $2 million per month on expenses including 14 lavish homes, an $18 million yacht, as well as other items the group deems beyond Depp’s budget. The countersuit was filed in response to an earlier lawsuit filed by Johnny Depp in which he alleges The Mangement Group claimed $28 million in fees he never agreed to and loaned out $10 million of his money to third parties without his consent.

Johnny Depp has recently fired back at his former managers, according to Yahoo Movies, claiming that it’s not really any of their business how he spends his money.

“It’s my money,” Depp said. “If I want to buy 15,000 cotton balls a day, it’s my thing.”

Johnny Depp claims he spent $5 million on a cannon used to fire Hunter S. Thompson’s ashes. [Image by Jesse Grant/Getty Images]

Depp contends that a lot of the claims made by The Management Group about his spending habits are false, but when it comes to their charge that he spent $3 million on the cannon for Hunter S. Thompson’s funeral, he defiantly corrected their figure, stating that it actually cost $5 million to honor his late friend’s funeral request. As far as Johnny Depp is concerned, honoring the funeral wishes of his late friend, whom many consider one of America’s great writers, was worth the money.

[Featured Image by Kathy Willens/AP Images]

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