Jennifer Grey calls Johnny Depp relationship a ‘bonfire’

Dirty Dancing star Jennifer Grey has opened up about what it was like dating Johnny Depp in the ’80s amid the actor’s messy court battle.

Dirty Dancing icon Jennifer Grey has declared her ’80s relationship with Johnny Depp “a f***ing bonfire,” admitting it was the “first time” she experienced love in her life – despite being previously engaged to Matthew Broderick.

“There was some heat,” the 62-year-old actress told People of Depp, whom she dated for about a year after her engagement to Broderick, the New York Post reports.

“It was literally like, ‘Are you f***ing kidding me? Are you f***ing kidding me? I’ve never seen a guy like this.’”

Grey opened up about past loves including Depp and Broderick – who she started dating in 1985 while filming Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – while promoting her upcoming memoir, Out of the Corner.

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Matthew Broderick and Jennifer Grey dated in the ’80s. Picture: WireImage.

The actress also got candid about the tragedy she faced with her Ferris Bueller co-star when the two got into a car accident in Ireland in 1987 that left two dead.

“There was some very, very heavy stuff that went down that changed my life forever and there was no one to blame,” Grey told People. “It was a pure and simple accident that was tragic. And it had very serious traumatic lasting effects on, I’m sure, Matthew and the family of the other women and me.”

Grey and Broderick’s relationship didn’t survive the aftermath of the tragedy as news of the accident came on the heels of the Dirty Dancing premiere.

Questions and commentary about it followed her from Howard Stern to a Today show segment that was supposed to be about the movie, according to The New York Times.

But while weathering the storm, Grey moved on to Depp, who she was set up with on a blind date by her agent.

Grey was set up with Depp on a blind date in 1988.

Grey broke up with the actor in a note she left in his hotel room.

She admitted that her relationship with Depp, now 58, made up for the hardship she faced.

“If a mirage could have been a person in the summer of 1988, that mirage would have been Johnny Depp,” she wrote in her memoir.

“Energetically, what it was like being with him, it was like, ‘Oh, I’m being totally, totally compensated for the sh*t I just went through,’” Grey told People.

The actress wrote in her memoir that she accepted Depp’s proposal when he asked her to marry him just two weeks into dating.

“On August 12, I wrote in my journal, ‘I’m in love, pretty sure for the first time in my life … He’s kind, funny, smart, moral, thoughtful, respectful,’” Grey wrote in a chapter of her book cleverly titled “Mrs. Broderdepp.”

Their engagement lasted nine months, but their relationship didn’t survive Depp’s fast-rising career.

Johnny Depp during his defamation trial brought against ex-wife Amber Heard. Picture: AFP.

Grey claimed that Depp become increasingly frustrated as he started to become known as a Hollywood heart-throb. She broke up with him through a note she left in his hotel room after he left for a meeting one day and never returned, according to People.

Depp went on to date many A-list celebrities and is involved in a defamation lawsuit with his ex-wife, Amber Heard.

Depp is suing Heard, 36, over an op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post in 2018, in which she called herself a victim of “sexual violence”.

Meanwhile, Grey later married actor Clark Gregg, 60. The couple divorced in 2021 after 19 years.

Grey’s book is set for release next month.

This article originally appeared in the New York Post and was reproduced with permission