Winona Ryder Admitted To Not ‘Taking Care Of’ Herself After Breakup With Johnny Depp And Shoplifting Charge

Jul 05, 2022 by apost team

Since the late 1980s, Winona Ryder has been a pivotal figure in the entertainment industry. She is known for her expressive face and distinctive vocal tone when it comes to delivering her lines as an actress, and she has portrayed a wide variety of characters, from those on the more weird and quirky side to those on the more serious and stoic side.

Ryder was born as Winona Laura Horowitz on Oct. 29, 1971, in Winona, Minnesota. When she was 10 years old, Ryder and her family moved to Petaluma, California, where her classmates incessantly bullied her. Ryder endured several hardships during her childhood all the way through to the end of her high school career. Despite the fact that she had started acting during this time, people still ridiculed her.

However, Ryder has proven to come out on top time and again. In her career, she has been honored with several awards and accolades. She has also continued to find success in mainstream projects both in film and television. Some of her most prominent works include “Beetlejuice,” “Heathers,” “Edward Scissorhands” and “Girl, Interrupted.” In addition, Ryder is currently on the highly popular science fiction series “Stranger Things.”

As someone who has been in the spotlight for so long, it’s not surprising that Ryder has dated a few celebrities, including Johnny Depp, who even got a tattoo of her name. Nowadays, the star is opening up more about her past hardships, her current relationship and her personal mental health struggles. Read on to find out more about Ryder’s life and career.

Ryder is clearly a force to be reckoned with when finding success in Hollywood. The accomplished actress has portrayed a litany of characters in films and television, proving that she has a very impressive range. 

Ryder became a star early on thanks to her roles in cult films such as “Beetlejuice” and “Heathers.” Ryder went on to find even more success as the years went by, but not before she took a brief hiatus following a troubling incident. She had been arrested for shoplifting at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills in 2001. According to Harper’s Bazaar, Ryder had been overprescribed painkillers after breaking her arm, leaving her feeling disoriented and having committed the crime. She was sentenced to 500 hours of community service and essentially hid away from the spotlight of Los Angeles to move to her childhood home in San Francisco, according to The Guardian. 

At the time, Ryder admitted that she “didn’t have this tremendous sense of guilt,” according to PEOPLE. However, she explained, “The attention was what was embarrassing.”

Ryder remained silent. “I never said a word. I didn’t release a statement. I didn’t do anything. I just waited for it to be over.” Later, Ryder admitted, “Psychologically, I must have been at a place where I just wanted to stop.” At the time, she also made “a very conscious decision not to work.”

This also happened just a few years after Ryder’s relationship with Depp ended. She first met him in June 1989, and the two began dating shortly after. In July 1990, they became engaged but broke up in 1993. However, Depp had gotten a tattoo of Ryder’s name during this time that said “Winona Forever,” although he later changed it to “Wino Forever.”

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Speaking with Harper’s Bazaar in June 2022, Ryder reflected on her relationship with Depp, alluding that it was much darker than the general public may realize, and also looked back on her Hollywood downfall in the years that followed. “That was my ‘Girl, Interrupted’ in real life,” she said. She recalled her character from the drama “The House of Spirits” and later connected with “an incredible therapist” to help her better understand the hardships of her past.

“I would look at these fake bruises and cuts on my face (from the shoot), and I would struggle to see myself as this little girl,” Ryder explained. “‘Would you be treating this girl like you’re treating yourself?’ I remember looking at myself and saying, ‘This is what I’m doing to myself inside.’ Because I just wasn’t taking care of myself.”

Ryder took a “mutual break” from Hollywood as she expressed needing to retreat while the entertainment industry didn't offer her much reason to stay anyway. She said:

“It’s so interesting when you look at the early aughts. It was a kind of cruel time. There was a lot of meanness out there … And then I remember coming back to L.A. and — it was a rough time. And I didn’t know if that part of my life was over.”

Thankfully, Ryder has come a long way since the hardships of the 1990s and 2000s and has opened up more about her mental health struggles. Ryder told TODAY, “I don’t regret opening up about what I went through (with depression) ...” She added: “And I am super sensitive, and I don’t think that that’s a bad thing. To do what I do, I have to remain open.”

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