EXCLUSIVE Johnny Depp moves to Sussex: Pirates of the Caribbean star snaps up large house after living in the county during Covid in guitarist Jeff Beck's 16th century cottage

Daily Mail​

a day ago

He cuts the most bohemian of figures.
But it can be revealed that Johnny Depp has joined the gin-and-jag set by putting down roots in the Home Counties, snapping up a large house in the Sussex countryside, near the border with Kent.
He was chauffeured from there to the premiere of his new film, Modigliani: Three Days On The Wing Of Madness, last week, which is why he reportedly was a little late.
Two years ago, there were reports – which proved inaccurate – suggesting the Anglophile actor had moved to Somerset.
In fact, he was holed up in London, in a Soho townhouse and art studio, where he lived for a couple of years.
The Daily Mail's Alison Boshoff reported in July last year and recently-published interviews with Depp were indeed conducted in Soho.
However, for reasons of peace, privacy and security he's now decided to move out to the country, just like his late best friend, the guitarist Jeff Beck, it can be revealed today.
Beck lived in a 16th-century farmhouse in Wadhurst, Sussex; and Depp stayed with him during the Covid pandemic.
A friend said Depp said he was 'in the English sticks', which he described as 'very beautiful and wet'.
Depp has a huge house in the south of France, where he and ex-partner Vanessa Paradis largely raised their children Lily-Rose and Jack; and a Caribbean island, Little Hall's Pond Cay, where he tied the knot with Amber Heard in February 2015.
That relationship unravelled just two years later, and after the divorce came two legal battles over allegations of domestic abuse.
Depp lost the libel action which he brought at the UK High Court in 2020, after being called a 'wife beater', but successfully brought a libel action against Heard in a US court in 2022.
Depp told the High Court in 2020 he'd lost $650million of the money he made at the peak of his Pirates Of The Caribbean fame, and was left owing $100million in taxes, on account of managers he accused of stealing from him.
But friends say, despite unhappy memories of his British court case, Depp feels at home here.
Key members of his team, including the CEO of his UK production company, Stephen Deuters, are based here. Depp seems to enjoy East Sussex, and has been spotted at The Middle House pub and hotel in Mayfield.
He's also taken a tour of the Folly Wildlife Rescue animal centre in Kent, of which Beck was patron, and was pictured cradling an orphaned badger named Freddie Mercury.
Depp was devastated by Beck's sudden death from bacterial meningitis in January 2023.
Johnny was reportedly at his bedside.
He and the guitarist's widow Sandra gave him a 'green burial' in the grounds of his house in Sussex.
And it is perhaps no surprise that Depp is drawn to settling there himself.
Johnny may even take a leaf out of his old friend's quieter life as a country gent.
Beck supported the local wildlife rescue charity and would be seen chatting to locals and even pottering around the Co-op supermarket - though, of course, villagers said some 'absurdly gorgeous classic car' would be parked wherever he went.
When he wasn't recording in his home studio, or touring the world and playing his iconic music to thousands of adoring fans, Beck would even write the occasional letter to Wealden Council.
Only his friend Johnny Depp would raise eyebrows in the community, with a taxi driver who once picked up the Hollywood star near Beck's place in Wadhurst - where they had been jamming - telling BBC journalist Victoria Valentine that the actor's 'jangly necklaces' were 'a bit unusual in rural Sussex'.
The pair first met in 2016 and began recording the album in 2019 while Depp was also playing with Alice Cooper's supergroup Hollywood Vampires.
In 2022 Beck released a full length album, titled 18, with Depp and the pair played a number of live gigs together.
Depp gave an interview to Hollywood Authentic where he said: 'There's a couple who very much helped to keep me alive and sane and happy through the weirdness. And that's Jeff and Sandra [Beck's wife]'.
Beck, regarded as one of rock's greatest ever guitarists, was ranked fifth in Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the '100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time'.
His extraordinary career saw him share the stage with some of music's biggest names – and produce an album as well as touring with Depp in 2022.