Johnny Depp has been a household name since bursting onto the Hollywood scene in the mid-1980s.
But it's not just his career that has grabbed the attention of the tabloids over the years.
The actor's love life has garnered a lot of attention too, and with good reason.
One of Johnny's first relationships, when he was still new to the Hollywood scene, was
that with Sherilyn Fenn . Like all of the actor's relationships, it was a whirlwind
romance, and to this day, Sherilyn gushes that he was her first love.
Before his high-profile relationships with Winona Ryder and Kate Moss, Johnny Depp dated
a star of the iconic early '90s T.V.
show Twin Peaks, Sherilyn Fenn.
But during the 80s, both Depp and Fenn were still doing their best to climb up Hollywood's
very steep ladder to fame.
They were both very young when they first met on the set of the student film 'Dummies'
in 1985.
Sherilyn was just 19 years old, and Johnny was 21, and their attraction for one another
was undeniable.
Johnny's quirky charm swept the actress off her feet, and soon the pair was inseparable.
While the couple was trying to make a name for themselves in the film industry, they
were both incredibly supportive of one another.
In fact, Johnny would often tag along with Sherilyn to her auditions as moral support
and wait outside for her while she auditioned.
The actress recalled, "The first big thing I acted in was Cheers – and my first love,
little Johnny Depp, was waiting outside the door.
I had to walk on and say three lines, then leave.
My body was shaking.
I walked out to say my lines, but I just wanted to run back into my boyfriend's arms and run
away."
Depp was also starting to gain traction in his own career, and he was soon cast in 21
Jump Street.
He played a cop who went undercover in a high school on the Fox drama.
As it turned out, Fenn guest-starred in an episode on the first season of the show, playing
a high school girl who wanted Depp's character to murder her father.
The pair also went on to appear in a Pepsi commercial together.
Sherilyn gushed, "I had found real love.
It was with someone who was walking the same path, but even if he wasn't, the love and
the connection was strong enough –- cooking meals, hanging out, laughing and crying."
When Johnny was cast in the movie "Platoon" in 1986, alongside Willem Dafoe and Charlie
Sheen, the cast was asked to decorate their own military helmets for their characters
in the film.
Depp decorated his with a few references to Fenn.
One part of his helmet even had "Sherilyn" written across it.
And it also features a heart pierced by cupid's arrow.
In the movie, audiences can even see her initials' S.F.'
sprawled across the helmet.
It was clear to everyone that the love Johnny had for Sherilyn ran deep, and it didn't take
long for rumors of an engagement to start spreading.
The couple was together for about two and a half years, and while the timeline is not
totally clear, we know that they split sometime around 1988.
Despite their split, Fenn never stopped speaking fondly of Depp.
In fact, she repeatedly referred to him as her "first love."
The actress shared, "We were so young … We went out for two-and-a-half years when we
were just starting out in the business.
He was very sweet.
He was my first love."
Sherilyn shared that her relationship with Johnny was very important to her and something
she will always treasure.
She explained, "Finding your first love is an important part of everyone's life."
She added, "With Johnny, it helped me because as a young woman, for the first time, I had
found real love.
So it is more about that than the fact he is this well-known person now.
I know him as a human, not a movie star."
While Sherilyn was open to speaking about her relationship with Johnny, on the other
hand, he's remained a little more tightly lipped about their shared history.
It's not entirely clear as to why, but it's perhaps because the actor has normally preferred
to keep his love life private.
Johnny has been no stranger to the tabloids, but when it comes to his romances and private
life, he's always done his best to keep these things to himself and avoided speaking about
them to the press.
We still don't know the real reason Johnny and Sherilyn ended their relationship.
It's possible that their flame just burnt out.
Or perhaps their busy schedules as actors kept them apart for too long.
After all, they first got together before their careers in Hollywood had initially taken
off.
So maybe by prioritizing their work, they weren't able to make time for each other.
The pair was also pretty young when they first started dating, and maybe the seriousness
of their relationship was too much too soon.
It's unlikely that we'll ever really know what happened to cause the breakup.
Perhaps they simply grew apart, or maybe Depp's affections were drawn elsewhere since he started
dating Jennifer Grey not long after his split from Fenn.
However, Sherilyn has not shied away from sharing memories and pictures of their time
together on social media.
Her posts did create a little bit of confusion for outsiders since Depp himself has never
really commented on their relationship.
Even though Fenn has continued to speak highly of Depp and even came to his defense during
the scandalous abuse allegations from his ex-wife Amber Heard, it doesn't appear as
though the two have actually stayed in touch.
"Simply the very first love of my life," she captioned one photo she shared in April 2020.
"After so many years, it would be fun to talk.
Yet, memories are enough as well."
In a 2016 tweet, Fenn also said that Johnny was "not capable of the things being written."
Looking at the way Fenn still speaks about Depp, it would be hard to imagine that they
had a bad breakup.
Johnny moved on to have quite a few memorable romances after Sherilyn, his most notable
one was probably with Winona Ryder, whom he dated after calling things off with Jennifer
Grey.
Johnny and Winona were undeniably one of the most admired celebrity couples in the early
1990s.
They met through mutual friends and were so quickly smitten with one another that they
moved in together and got engaged just five months after knowing each other.
At the time, Depp was 25 years old, and Ryder was just 17.
They were the ultimate "it couple" of Hollywood; with their effortlessly cool style, they seemed
like the perfect fit for one another.
Especially after seeing them together in Edward Scissorhands.
Their bond appeared to be unbreakable, which is why fans were so shocked when they called
off their engagement after four years together.
So what happened to cause their split?
Well, after announcing their split in 1993, the former couple hinted that they had battled
with the swarms of media attention to their relationship.
They had hoped that by being upfront and honest with the public, the interest in their dating
lives would go away, but this did not happen.
Johnny confessed, "It's very hard to have a personal life in this town.
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."
Winona, too described that overcoming their relationship was the hardest for her; all
she could feel was 'completely lost.'
She opened up about the same in an interview, saying, "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."
As for Sherilyn, she went on to marry the musician Toulouse Holliday in 1994.
The couple went on to have a son together, Myles, but unfortunately, they divorced after
just three years of marriage.
Their son Myles is now an actor and writer; he is known for movies like Rotten Love, Bump,
and Dawn.
Since 2006, Sherilyn has been with her long-term partner, Dylan Stewart.
After the couple's first year together, they welcomed a son, Christian Stewart.
The couple has maintained a life of privacy away from the spotlight over the years, so
not much is known about how they met.
We can't help but reminisce over these old Hollywood romances.
It seems as though if there was a time to be alive and in love, it was the 80s and 90s.
From the effortlessly cool, dark, and grungy styles to the heart tattoos and whirlwind
love stories.
It's these stories that make us appreciate being young and in love, and we don't think
anyone did it better than Johnny Depp!
Thanks for watching our video, Juicers, don't forget to head over to our channel and hit
that subscribe button.
You won't want to miss any of our videos that cover all the best love stories in Hollywood.