The dark side of stardom: A superstar’s childhood of pain

Depp has been open about the fact that the abuse came from his mother, Betty Sue Palmer. His memories of his father, by contrast, are filled with quiet endurance. “When my mother would go off on a tangent toward my father… he remained very stoic,” Depp recalled. “He stood there and just looked at her while she delivered the pain, and he swallowed it.”

As a child, Depp couldn’t understand why his father stayed. Years later, he came to see that restraint as strength. “He is a good man,” Depp said, remembering the composure his father maintained even when things escalated to the point of punching a wall—once breaking his own hand—without ever striking back.