The triumphant return of Winona Ryder: Beetlejuice cements her comeback after shoplifting shame - and she's finally found happiness after 'wild' lovers including Johnny Depp
With leading roles in hit films including Beetlejuice and Heathers under her belt and Hollywood's biggest hearthrob Johnny Depp on her arm - with his undying love for her tattooed on his - Winona Ryder seemed to have the world at her feet in the early '90s.
After her string of kooky breakout roles she cemented her status as a bona fide star in period dramas such as The Age of Innocence, for which she earned an Oscar nomination - followed a year later with a Best Actress nod for Little Women.
But just as quickly as her star rose, it came crashing back down when the star was beset by a string of personal woes that meant casting agents refused to touch her.
Alongside a turbulent romance with co-star Johnny Depp, Winona faced several brushes with the law after being arrested for shoplifting, sparking a disappearance from the limelight.
While she was able to land a handful of memorable cameos, including an embittered ballerina in Black Swan, Winona's legal troubles led to many years in the Hollywood doldrums.
However this hiatus came to a surprise end in 2016 in the form of the Netflix series Stranger Things, although Winona being cast in one of its leading roles received little to no attention in the lead-up to its release.
After rising to fame with a string of kooky roles, followed by a dramatic downfall, Winona Ryder has cemented her return to Hollywood's elite with the film Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
While Winona's career was on a solid trajectory throughout the 90s, things took a drastic turn in 2001, when she was convicted of shoplifting
Adding to this was the news that over 30 years after the original was released, a Beetlejuice sequel would be hitting cinemas, with Winona set to reprise her role as Lydia Deet
People started paying attention, however, when the show became a worldwide sensation, kickstarting a huge comeback for Winona in the Hollywood spotlight.
Added to this was the news that 30 years after the original was released, a Beetlejuice sequel would be hitting cinemas, with Winona set to reprise her role as Lydia Deetz.
Following its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, the horror-fantasy caper will be released on September 6, and no doubt will cement Winona's grand return to the film scene.
Things are also going just as well in Winona's personal life, with the actress now in a long-term relationship with Scott Mackinlay Hahn.
So as Beetlejuice fans don their best striped suits to see the famous demon wreak havoc once again, MailOnline takes a look at how Winona has cemented her sensational comeback...
Teenage film star bullied by her peers
She has expressed in numerous interviews that she wasn't one of the popular kids in school and unfortunately, matters only got worse for her after Beetlejuice
In what was just her third big screen role, Winona landed her big break in 1988 in the quirky horror Beetlejuice
In what was just her third big screen role, Winona landed her big break in 1988 in the quirky horror Beetlejuice.
She starred as Lydia Deetz, the teenage goth who discovers her ability to see the dead, and is drawn into a marriage to the bio-exorcist Betelgeuse, who is desperate to return to the land of the living.
Along with positive reviews, the film grossed a respectable $74.6 million at the box office, and has since become an 80s cult classic.
Ryder starred as Lydia Deetz when she was just 16 years old.
She has expressed in numerous interviews that she wasn't one of the popular kids in school and unfortunately, matters only got worse for her after Beetlejuice.
'I remember thinking, 'Ooh, it's, like, the number-one movie. This is going to make things great at school,'' she told Marie Claire UK.
'But it made things worse. They called me a witch.'
After Beetlejuice, she starred in the cult classic Heathers (1988) and played Jerry Lee Lewis's cousin child bride Myra in Great Balls Of Fire (1989).
Even after having four films under her belt and rumours that she was dating the likes of Rob Lowe in the mid-80s and her Heathers co-star Christian Slater, she still wasn't widely accepted among her peers.
'When I get around people my own age, I'm a wreck. What they think of me is so much more important than what people in the industry think of me,' she told Vogue back in 1994.
'I think it's just facing my own insecurity. I was not accepted in high school, not in junior high school, not in elementary school. I was always picked on. I never had friends, except for one, Heather.
'This is going to sound weird, but even after I got famous, kids weren't nicer to me. I mean I stayed in high school until I was a sophomore. I'd done four movies. I'd done Beetlejuice – it was a huge movie. But kids still threw food at me,' she concluded.
At that point, she left high school and started working on high-profile films with Hollywood's elite, including a certain role that kickstarted her romance with another acting heavy weight...
Hollyood power couple - but career pressure led to burnout
The pair went onto date for four years, splitting in 1993. After their split Winona admitted that she was 'very depressed' after breaking off their engagement
Welcomed back by director Tim Burton for 1990s Edward Scissorhands, it was there that Winona first met Pirates Of The Caribbean star Johnny Depp
Welcomed back by director Tim Burton for 1990s Edward Scissorhands, it was there that Winona first met Pirates Of The Caribbean star Johnny Depp.
The two played love interests and would take their relationship off of the big screen into real life in 1989. Ryder was only 17 years old at the time while Depp was 27.
She later revealed that he was her first real boyfriend.
'When I met Johnny, I was pure virgin. He changed that,' she said.
'He was my first everything. My first real kiss. My first real boyfriend. My first fiancé.
'The first guy I had sex with. So he'll always be in my heart.'
In turn, Depp showed his devotion by getting a tattoo on his upper right arm that read 'Winona Forever'.
'What we have... Nothing I say will really be right,' she said of her and Depp's relationship to Interview Magazine in 1990.
She added: 'I will say that he's an amazing human whom I have an enormous amount of respect for and very deep feelings for. It's not a possessive, weird little Hollywood promenade.'
He proposed to her just five months after they started dating.
While Winona's star continued to rise in the early 1990s, but it was during this time that she struggled to juggle the demand of her various roles, forcing her to drop out of The Godfather Part III.
'It taught me that I have to slow down,' she said of the experience to Interview Magazine.
She caught a respiratory infection from filming Mermaids in Boston and wearing tiny dresses. The day after Mermaids wrapped, she hopped a plane to Rome for The Godfather Part III.
'I never should have flown. The doctor said I could have gone deaf,' she admitted.
'Of course, that's not the way everybody made it sound. They made it sound like I freaked out and ran,' she added.
She continued: 'I regret screwing people up, but I would have been a wet noodle. My acting probably would have been panned. How do you act when you don't have anything left? One thing you have to have when you act is energy.'
Winona surged back into the spotlight again with her starring role in 1992's Dracula, but in later years she detailed the challenges of filming with director Francis Ford Coppola
So she flew back to her hometown in San Francisco, claiming she was most looking forward to tasting her mother's soup and being in her own bed.
Many feared that Ryder was pulling the plug on her own career.
'This business is brutal,' she told Harper's Bazaar, reflecting on the issue, in 2022.
'You're working constantly, but if you want to take a break, they tell you, "If you slow down, it's going to stop''.'
She continued: 'And then it did slow down. So then you're hearing, "It's going to be impossible to come back". And then that changes to, "You're not even part of the conversation". Like, it was brutal.'
Winona surged back into the spotlight again with her starring role in 1992's Dracula, but in later years she detailed the challenges of filming with director Francis Ford Coppola, a Hollywood veteran who wasn't shy about using hard-nosed methods to get the performance he wanted.
'At the time, I thought, "Oh, I'm a real actress.' But in retrospect I probably wouldn't take that again unless it was a director that I knew really well and that I really trusted",' Winona admitted.
She added: 'I learnt a lot on that set about what I'm not capable of tolerating.'
Split from Depp left her 'completely lost'
Depp had a tattoo on his upper right arm that initially read 'Winona Forever' as a tribute to his then fiancée in 1990
After the spilt, Depp blamed himself and said they had been too open about their relationship
Winona hit another low when she and Johnny split in 1993 with their rep telling People at the time: 'They’re young, and they grew apart.'
Depp was more forthcoming and blamed the pressure of being in a relationship in the public eye.
'It was my mistake to be as open as we were, but I thought if we were honest it would destroy that curiosity monster. Instead it fed it, gave people license to feel they were part of it,' he said.
For her part, Winona said that she was 'completely lost' after experiencing her first real heartbreak.
'I had my first real relationship with Johnny, a fiercely deep love that I don't know that I'll ever... The first love is like that isn't it? I don't know today. It was a real wild time back then,' Ryder recalled in a 2001 interview with Cinema.com.
'It's really good to be able to think about past loves without having a pit in my stomach, or cringing or feeling heart-broken, or like they hate you. Don't you think? Because for the few years after you break up you go through all of those feelings.
'I was very depressed after breaking off my engagement with Johnny 10 years ago. I was embarrassingly dramatic at the time, but you have to remember I was only 19 years old.'
'That was my Girl, Interrupted real life,' Winona told Harper's Bazaar, referencing her hit film that hadn't come out until six years after the breakup.
'I remember Michelle [Pfieffer] being like, "This is going to pass". But I couldn't hear it,' Ryder said of her former co-star.
She added: 'I've never talked about it. There's this part of me that's very private. I have such, like, a place in my heart for those days. But for someone younger who grew up with social media, it's hard to describe.'
However, the couple have remained on good terms in the intervening years.
In 2020, she famously supported Depp in his blockbuster libel case over allegations of domestic violence by his ex-wife Amber Heard.
'We were together as a couple for four years. I counted him as my best friend, and as close to me as family,' she told the court in a statement.
'I obviously was not there during his marriage to Amber, but, from my experience, which was so wildly different, I was absolutely shocked, confused and upset when I heard the accusations against him.
'The idea that he is an incredibly violent person is the farthest thing from the Johnny I knew and loved. I cannot wrap my head around these accusations.
'He was never, never abusive at all towards me.
'He has never been violent or abusive towards anybody I have seen. I truly and honestly only know him as a really good man - an incredibly loving, extremely caring guy who was so very protective of me and the people that he loves, and I felt so very, very safe with him.'
In court, Amber Heard claimed that Depp hit her for the first time when she questioned him about his Winona tattoo, which he had altered after their split to read: 'Wino Forever'.
Heard said: 'To me it looked like black marks, I didn't know what it said.
'I said, "What does it say?". He said, "It says Wino" and I thought he was joking and I laughed. He slapped me across the face and I laughed.'
I laughed because I didn't know what else to do. I thought this must be a joke. Because I didn't know what was going on.'
Heard said she stared at Depp and laughed, thinking he was going to laugh and say it was all a joke.
'You think it's funny b****, you think you're a funny b****?' Depp said, according to Heard before slapping her again.
'He slapped me again. It wasn't a joke anymore. I stopped laughing. I didn't know what else to do. He slapped me for no reason.
Her shoplifting hell sparks a career downturn
The rest of the '90s were a pivotal time for her as she starred in Little Women (1994), The Crucible (1996) and one of her most iconic films, Girl, Interrupted (1999), which won star Angelina Jolie an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
Winona herself also received two Oscar nods in this time, one for The Age Of Innocence, and another for Little Women.
Following her split from Johnny, Winona had a brief relationship with Matt Damon in 1997 after she was introduced to him by Gwyneth Paltrow and Ben Affleck.
Even though their relationship lasted less than a year, it seemed to end amicably.
She told Blackbook magazine that he 'couldn't be a greater, nicer guy' and that 'I'm really lucky that I'm on good terms with him.'
Winona Ryder appearing at Beverly Hills Court on charges of shop lifting in Los Angeles
While Winona's career was on a solid trajectory throughout the 90s, things took a drastic turn in 2001, when she was arrested for shoplifting.
She had allegedly stolen more than $5,000 worth of designer clothes and accessories from Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills.
She was charged with grand theft and vandalism, but was acquitted on a burglary charge and ended up facing three years of probation, 480 hours of community service, $3,700 in fines and $6,355 in restitution to Saks along with mandatory psychological and drug counseling.
The incident ultimately lead to her taking another break from her career to pursue 'other interests'.
'It's so interesting when you look at the early aughts. It was a kind of a cruel time. There was a lot of meanness out there,' she told Porter Magazine in 2016.
'And then I remember coming back to LA and - it was a rough time. And I didn't know if that part of my life was over.'
Specifically addressing the shoplifting incident, she stated: 'I won't get into what happened, but it wasn't what people think. And it wasn't like the crime of the century.'
'But it allowed me time that I really needed, where I went back to San Francisco and got back into things… I just had other interests, frankly,' she continued.
In the wake of Winona's legal troubles, her star in Hollywood had noticeably dwindled, leading to many years where she was noticeably absent from the big screen.
'It was hard to find that transition to adult roles,' Winona told The Telegraph in 2014.
'But I'm actually really enjoying getting older because I went through a period of time where I was technically old enough for roles but always associated with younger ones.
'The whole of my thirties was spent that way. Now that I'm in my forties it's getting a little bit easier.'
With Stranger Things comes a worldwide comeback
Winona began her return to the spotlight with an unlikely cameo in the racy 2010 thriller Black Swan as a bitter ballerina
Winona's starring role in the Netflix series Stranger Things relaunched her career, with the star earning an estimated $350,000 per episode by the show's fourth season
ctors Caleb McLaughlin, Noah Schnapp, Winona Ryder, Millie Bobby Brown and Gaten Matarazzo attend the premiere of Stranger Things in 2016
Winona began her return to the spotlight with an unlikely cameo in the 2009 Star Trek reboot as Mr Spock's mother, followed by the 2010 racy thriller Black Swan, starring as an bitter ballerina who is forced into retirement, to make way for a younger replacement.
While she only appeared in a handful of scenes, Winona's appearance in the film made a huge impact, opening the door for her return to Hollywood roles.
'That was a very liberating thing, because I was playing my age. … And I think in a lot of people's minds, that really helped. I sort of graduated,' she told The New York Times in 2016.
But it wasn't until Winona accepted the role as Joyce Byers in Stranger Things, starting in 2017, that she became a big name once more.
The fantasy series tapped into a trend of 80s nostalgia, and told the story of a sinister threat terrorising the town of Hawkins, after the disappearance of young Will Byers.
Winona was praised for her performance as the terrified mother Joyce, who is convinced a mysterious threat is reponsible for her son's disappearance.
The show also kickstarted the careers of young stars including Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, and like Winona also helped to relaunch the career of star David Harbour.
Winona is currently in the midst of filming Stranger Things' fifth and final season, and it's set to hit Netflix in 2025
For Winona, it appeared her role as Joyce finally offered her the chance to play a part suited to her age, as her outgrowing of teen parts left many casting agents struggling to utlise her talents.
'I started acting so young, I secretly wanted to be older,' she told Time Magazine.
'I know there's a lot of conversations right now about ageism, and I know a lot of actresses who have a tough time, and I've gotten offered those mom parts.
'But you can make something of it. For me, I'm finally getting to play my own age, and it's liberating. I would not want to go back to playing the ingénue.'
Along with the rising success of Stranger Things each season, Winona's salary has also seen a huge increase to reflect the show's record-breaking ratings.
It's thought she received around $350,000 per episode for the show's fourth season, which amounts to around $2.8 million total.
Winona is currently in the midst of filming Stranger Things' fifth and final season, and it's set to hit Netflix in 2025.
Happiness in her love life
Since 2011 Winona has been dating fashion designer Scott Mackinlay Hahn, but she has said they are no in rush to tie the knot
While Winona's relationship with Johnny was a well-publicised affair, her current relationship has been kept noticeably low-key.
Since 2011 she has been dating fashion designer Scott Mackinlay Hahn, after the pair met while attending the Black Swan premiere.
Speaking to Harper's Bazaar about their relationsip in 2024, she said: 'He's so great. He really is. I'm really lucky.'
Winona has also previously shared that she and Scott have no plans to marry in the future,
'I'm a serial monogamist,' the actress told Net-a-Porter's The Edit in July 2016. 'I was single for a while and dating and I just didn't know how to do it! I've always been like that. But marriage? I don't know.'
'I'd rather never have been married than been divorced a few times. Not that there's anything wrong with divorce, but I don't think I could do it if that was a possibility.
'When your parents are madly in love for 45 years, your standards are really high.'
A Beetlejuice return cements her Hollywood comeback
For some Beetlejuice fans, and Winona herself, returning to the iconic franchise may seem like a full circle moment
The star is set to reprise her role as Lydia in the upcoming sequel, where she's star alongside Jenna Ortega and fellow returning cast members Michael Keaton and Catherine O' Hara
In May, Beetlejuice fans were sent into a frenzy when the first trailer for the long-awaited sequel was released, with Winona, Michael Keaton and Catherine O' Hara reprising their roles.
Years have passed since the events of the original film, and now Lydia Deetz (Winona) is a mother to a teenage daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega).
Lydia assumed she would never hear from the mischievous entity ever again - until her daughter comes across an advertisement for a 'Bio Exorcist' in their attack.
It is Astrid who ends up bringing Beetlejuice back by saying his name three times despite the stern warnings of her mother.
Viewers are then shown snippets of their wild ride into the underworld, where they meet a slew of new faces played by Justin Theroux and Willem Dafoe.
Burton's real-life girlfriend, Monica Bellucci, also stars as Beetlejuice's wife.
For some Beetlejuice fans, and Winona herself, returning to the iconic franchise may seem like a full circle moment, with the actress herself admitting that she sees much of her character Lydia in her own personal troubles.
Speaking to Harper's Bazaar ahead of the film's release, she said: 'In my 30s, I had two disastrous relationships that were—they weren't wrong, but this was before you would ever think to Google someone.
'When I look back, I'm like, ''What the hell was I thinking?'' I was dating the type of person who only lets you know a few weeks in that they're in a relationship with someone else. And you're just like, ''What the f**k?''
