Not too terribly long ago, a story over at Celebitchy discussed Winona Ryder and the lingering effects of dating one Johnny Depp:

I don’t really think Winona’s a bad person, she just comes across as screwed up in this interview – screwed up and drowning in self-pity. She talks about her “first real break-up” and how it sucked really hard. She doesn’t say the name “Johnny Depp” but who else could she be talking about?

. . . .

Oh, Johnny. I think he’s one of those guys who is really difficult to get over. Neither Winona nor Kate Moss seemed to ever be the same after they had a taste of Johnny and his magical age-defying non-existent beer gut.

Exactly! I think the smashingly gorgeous Vanessa Paradis ought to realize just how lucky she is, for women never truly seem to recover after dating Johnny Depp because, really, how can one top that? My gay boyfriend once described this phenomenon as “The Johnny Depp Curse“:

Never mind the Black Pearl, the real curse is what happens to Johnny Depp’s women when he’s through with them, routinely running afoul of the law, abusing pharmaceuticals, & appearing on Friends.

Seriously. Sherilyn Fenn went on to date Jack Nicholson and enjoyed a relatively long run on “The Practice” before becoming a regular drunken fixture on various transatlantic flights to hell, career-wise. Jennifer Grey went through a handful of sitcom pilots and a series of awful nose jobs but generally faded into obscurity. Kate Moss may have become the world’s longest lasting supermodel, but she became just as well-known for indulging in cocaine binges and dating the world’s most famous junkie, a.k.a., “sexless leprechaun Pete Doherty.” The furthest fall, however, seemed to come from Winona Ryder, who landed herself in a psychiatric hospital and went on forge to a short-lived shoplifting career before slowly edging her way back into some semblance of an acting career.

So, what the hell happened to Winona to make her the most damaged Depp-ex of all? Arguably, it may have been the manner in which Depp dealt with that infamous “Winona Forever” tattoo on his right bicep. While “Wino Forever” really is a rather hilarious take, it was still sort of a dick move on Johnny’s behalf. He probably should have erased the whole tattoo instead of leaving half of Winona’s name on his arm. While I’m not attempting to excuse Ryder’s bizarre behavior, I can definitely see how this could really fuck a girl up: