Kate Moss and Johnny Depp: Their full relationship timeline

The world seemed to be put to rights when Johnny Depp and Kate Moss got together. Each international superstars in their own right – him, a budding actor, her, fashion’s new it-girl – together they were one of the early ninetes’ most-loved power couples. 

Talented, stylish and effortlessly cool, they were the poster children for the undone 90s aesthetic and everyone was *obsessed*. Of course, public perception of Depp has changed dramatically since then, with allegations of domestic and sexual abuse tailing him since Heard’s infamous Washington Post op-ed was published… but back then? He was king. 

First getting together in 1994, the couple dated for four years before eventually breaking up in 1997. So, how did they meet and where did it all go wrong? Here’s their full relationship timeline. 

The meet-cute

According to reports, Moss and Depp were supposedly introduced in 1994 at New York hangout Café Tabac by columnist George Wayne – one year after Depp split from Winona Ryder. Kate was 20-years-old at the time while Johnny was 31.

“Kate Moss was ‘fresh off the boat’… from Heathrow,” Wayne wrote on Instagram back in 2019, also sharing a photo of him posing with the model. “[She had spent] mere weeks as a New Yorker when photographer Michel Haddi asked me to be part of a British GQ photoshoot with her. I’ll never forget the moment she walked into the studio… this shy, unassuming babe in the jungle.”

“It took Calvin Klein to devise the perfect term to describe her… ‘Waif’. We became friends after this shoot, especially after she moved around the corner from my hovel in the West Village. And in fact, it was The GW who introduced Kate Moss to Johnny Depp,” he recalled. “One fateful night, mid 90s, at Cafe Tabac which was the supermodel hangout back in the day! 

“Johnny was in the back having dinner and Kate walked in with Naomi and The GW grabbed her and made the introduction! I had no idea that they would then become the IT couple for seasons to come… destroying hotel rooms across the globe during their still unforgettable union!”

Holidays, premieres, meeting the parents 

It wasn’t long before the press became aware of their relationship and the couple garnered quite a lot of attention wherever they went. “They can’t keep their hands, lips, mouths, legs off of each other,” a friend of Depp’s told People of their relationship. 

They weren’t always good at “keeping their brawls private” either though, once shouting at each other in the dining room of Manhattan’s Royalton Hotel. A longtime friend of Depp’s reportedly said, “Instead of hitting women, he just gets angry and lets off steam in other ways.” A comment that hasn’t aged well, given the current allegations against him.

Moss was utterly enthralled. “I knew from the first moment we talked that we were going to be together,” she said, according to Fred Vermorel’s 2006 book Kate Moss: Addicted to Love. “I’ve never had that before. That’s sweet.”

Two weeks later, Moss attended the LA premiere of a short film Depp directed called Banter. Afterwards, a small group got together and partied at the Viper Room, a nightclub and live music venue that Depp still co-owned at the time and where River Phoenix had died of an overdose just four months prior. 

In March, they went on holiday to St Bart’s. In April, they attended the premiere of John Waters’ Serial Mom together. Moss’ father reportedly deemed Depp “quite a nice chap”. 

Hotel trashup

In September of that year, Depp was arrested for criminal mischief at the Mark Hotel in New York, after allegedly trashing the presidential suite he had been staying in with Moss after an argument. Moss was there, unharmed, according to police, and the actor was “in a state of possible intoxication”. The charges against Depp were dropped after he paid his dues to the hotel (over $9,000 in total). 

“I think Johnny obviously has a temper,” Waters told People at the time. “But this is a very minor incident. The room service must have been bad.”

“It has absolutely nothing to do with Kate,” Depp later said of the incident. “You want to hear the honest truth about what happened in that hotel? There was a cockroach in that room the size of a baseball, and I was chasing it, and I missed.”

It’s her party

In January 1995, Depp threw Moss a 21st birthday party at the Viper Room, also gifting her a gorgeous John Galliano white slip dress. “It has travelled with me everywhere over the years,” the supermodel told British Vogue of the present years later. “It’s the most perfect dress.” 

Heartbreak city

The relationship ended in 1997, with a friend of Moss’s telling The New York Post that the actor “broke her heart” and she had gone “mad” over the split. As per E! News, their last rumoured hurrah involved a request for “enough champagne to fill a bathtub at London’s Portobello Hotel”. That turned out to be just another rumour though.

Together again? 

One year later, the couple appeared to have briefly rekindled their relationship when they were photographed holding hands together at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, but their reunion was short-lived and they called it quits for good not long after. 

Both parties have talked briefly of their relationship in the years that followed. In 2005, Depp said that his work got in the way and he “didn’t give her the attention” she needed. “I don’t think I was very good for her,” he admitted in an interview with Hello!. 

“I have been so stupid because we had so much going for our relationship,” he said at the time. “I’m the one who has to take responsibility for what happened. 

“I was difficult to get on with, I let my work get in the way and I didn’t give her the attention I should have done… I have never got that emotional over a woman before.”

A couple of years later, the notoriously private Moss told Vanity Fair that Depp had always made her feel cared for. “There’s nobody that’s ever really been able to take care of me,” she admitted. “Johnny did for a bit. I believed what he said. Like if I said, ‘What do I do?’, he’d tell me. And that’s what I missed when he left. I really lost that gauge of somebody I could trust. Nightmare. Years and years of crying. Oh, the tears!”

Being single was “tragic” by her own description. “It’s tragic being on your own. It’s just nice to be with someone. Better than just being by yourself, definitely,” she admitted. “It’s nice to be single for a minute, then it gets really boring. It’s nice to be with someone you can have a laugh with.”

Not much is known about the two’s current relationship but Kate is expected to testify in the ongoing defamation case between Depp and his ex-wife Amber Heard tomorrow.