The media have been loving all the recent stories about actor Johnny Depp's extravagant lifestyle. His $30,000 a month wine budget. The $45 million spent to buy and refurbish his 14 homes. The $300,000 monthly bill to support his 40-person full-time staff. The insistence on taking private jets everywhere. The art collection. The memorabilia. The $3 million to blast the ashes of author Hunter Thompson over Aspen, Colorado, from a cannon. The news was made public in a countersuit filed by Depp's money managers Mandel Company, who handled Depp's affairs for 17 years until being fired in March 2016. Depp has claimed that the firm financially mismanaged him.
Who's at fault here? It doesn't matter. All I ask is that you please don't judge the great actor on the news reports alone. New and secret documents revealed only to this reporter have proved that Depp was also a brilliant investor and philanthropist. Don't believe me? Here are just a few examples of Depp's financial genius. Did you know that Depp spent...
-$437,000 to hire a new group of writers for The Walking Dead after such a horrible first half of this past season?
-$4.5 million to pay off millions of voters to cast their vote for Donald Trump, ensuring that the American public will have a wide choice of great comedy sketches and monologues to choose from on late night TV for the next four years? (Assuming he doesn't get impeached, of course)?
-$25,000 to the tech guys who created a TV gold moment by screwing up Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer's protest speeches in front of the Capitol?
-$1.5 million to Chris Pratt in exchange for his promise to never make another movie with Jennifer Lawrence again?
-$289,000 to hire and train a body-double for Tom Brady so that the public will remain unaware that the real 39-year-old superstar hasn't played in years because he chooses to snuggle with the gorgeous Gisele instead of getting his head bashed in playing professional football?
-$75 million to purchase countless iPhones and prop up Apple's earnings in the wake of that iWatch disaster?
-$32,000 to a new barber for Bill Gates because we can't have America's only trillionaire walking around looking like this all the time? (It's just embarrassing, and we have enough to be embarrassed about.)
-$15,000 to continue those hilarious water bottle flip videos by Dude Perfect on YouTube? (what, you haven't seen these?)
-$50,000 to pay for the support and continuing development of Grace VanderWaal because she's awesome?
-$5,000 to the guy behind me on this flight to please, please finish his chicken curry before everyone in my row gets sick?
-$1.1 billion to buy a majority stake in Ford so that he can personally put an end to those ridiculous Lincoln commercials with Matthew McConaughey?
-$75,000 to secret alien scientists in Nevada who were able to create Steph Curry? (We thank you.)
-$2.3 million that funded the secret operation to eliminate all scary clowns? (It seems to have worked.)
-$750 to reimburse the sister tormented by her Zombie Apocalypse brothers in that hilarious prank video?
-$125,000 to help pay for Beyonce's prenatal care now that we know she's having twins because those twins will be precious future assets to society?
-$650,000 to continue underwriting the great career of Mohanlal?
-$2.1 million to partially fund the advance that E.L. James will receive for writing a fourth "Fifty Shades" book? (Oh, you know why.)
OK, none of this happened. This is not true. This is all made up.
Yes, Depp shouldn't have squandered his money. His financial advisors should have resigned a long, long time ago. And now our taxpayer dollars must go towards funding a judge who will ultimately agree with this conclusion and find both parties at fault. But wouldn't it have been great if Depp did spend some of those millions on any of the items above? I'm sure any Walking Dead fan would agree.
A version of this column originally appeared on Inc.com.