The Johnny Depp conundrum: Who should keep tabs on the money?

THE thing celebrity magazines never mention about Johnny Depp's current problems - the foreclosures on his homes, how he was said to have cut off his fingertip in a marital dispute, the fact he may need to sell a small French village to cover debts associated with the subsequent divorce - is how his challenges are relevant to the Trump administration.

Depp has appeared in some of the highest-grossing (Pirates of the Caribbean) and weirdest (Yoga Hosers) films of the past 30 years, earning him an estimated US$650 million. Being a rich movie star, however, does not necessarily bring great financial savvy. Over the past decade, Depp has paid more than US$5.6 million in interest on overdue taxes, has lent millions of dollars to people unlikely to pay him back and has unwisely splurged on a number of questionable investments, not the least of which is that town near Saint-Tropez.

These money missteps, Depp says, are not his fault. Back in 1999, you see, Depp hired a firm named the Management Group to oversee his finances. But instead of protecting his fortunes, those financial advisers "engaged in years of gross mismanagement, self-dealing, and at times, actual fraud", according to a lawsuit Depp filed against the company. (The Management Group filed a countersuit on Tuesday denying wrongdoing and arguing that it "did everything possible to protect Depp from his own irresponsible and profligate spending".) The alleged fiscal malfeasance visited upon Depp occurred over 16 years, but the actor was unaware of this skulduggery, his lawsuit asserts, because he simply wasn't paying much attention to what was going on.