Money Doesn’t Buy Happiness: The Dark Side of the Johnson and Johnson Family

The life and death of an heiress

Aymes Sarah
8 min readJul 22, 2020

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Casey Johnson (3rd from left) with friends: Nicole Richie, Bijou Phillips, and Nicki Hilton. Image courtesy of Getty Images and Kevin Winter

Casey Johnson was one of the heiresses to the billion-dollar healthcare company Johnson & Johnson.

She was young, beautiful, and rich but she died alone on January 4, 2010, at the age of thirty.

Her father, Robert Woody Johnson IV, is the great-grandson of Robert Woody Johnson who co-founded Johnson & Johnson.

Casey’s father, who goes by the name Woody, owns the New York Jets football team and is currently the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom.

His current net worth is estimated to be 3.5 billion dollars.

He was able to conquer the business world but he was not able to save his daughter Casey, who suffered from mental health issues.

A Troubled Childhood

Casey was born on September 24, 1979. She was raised in Manhattan, New York, and attended a prestigious private school for the duration of her education.

At the tender age of 8, Casey was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes.

At 9-years-old, Casey became unpredictable and disruptive at school so she began seeing a therapist.

This therapist became a father figure to little Casey because her father could not relate to his daughter and her struggles.

An author named Jerry Oppenheimer wrote a book about Casey called “Crazy Rich: Power, Scandal, and Tragedy Inside the Johnson & Johnson Dynasty.”

In this book, Casey’s mother, Sale Johnson spoke candidly about her daughter’s relationship with her father.

“Woody was not a warm, cuddly kind of person. With Casey, Woody was so uncomfortable because he didn’t know what to do with her, or how to react to her situation because she was not easy to deal with. She was very complicated, and it was overwhelming in a large part for Woody despite his best efforts. All Casey wanted was her father’s approval. She lived for that, and she was broken down because she didn’t get it.”

A Wild Life and Limitless Bank Account

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Aymes Sarah

Wife, mother, and researcher of a myriad of subjects. I love to write about anything and everything! Writer for The Startup, Better Marketing, & The Ascent👊