Johnny Depp says living in Florida as a child was a "sliver of hell".

The star spent his early years in Kentucky, with his civil engineer father John and his waitress mother Betty Sue. Before his parents split, the family moved several times. Johnny admits this was unsettling for him and he was particularly unhappy when they relocated to Miramar, Florida.

"My mom. She just wouldn't be and couldn't be satisfied in one spot. So we'd move to one joint, stay there for a while, then split to another joint," Johnny told GQ. "Living in a filthy motel. I used to have to go out and steal doughnuts. It was dire.

"It was a sliver of hell. But as kids, we loved it. Because we didn't know anything different. And then went on to live in I don't know how many houses. We were constantly moving, you know?"

Johnny who has Irish ancestry and a Cherokee grandmother struggled to settle in Miramar. He experienced a great deal of racism between different groups.

"When I was growing up there, the predominant sect were racists," he recalled. "The kids I went to school with were Cuban, black, Asian, or whatever. There was this craziness race riots every year. And that never made any sense to me. I came from Kentucky. I had no experience of it.

"In Miramar, a black kid you were friends with might smack you in the face with a helmet and you'd end up in a fight. And I'd just think, What the f**k's going on?'"