Johnny Depp is worth hundreds of millions of dollars and has been credibly accused of spousal abuse, but if you think about it, isn’t he the real victim? That’s the gist of his latest press conference, in which he moaned that cancel culture is “so far out of hand now” that “no one is safe.”
As Deadline reports, the embattled actor made these utterances ahead of the San Sebastian Film Festival, where he’ll be receiving the honorary Donostia Award. With the press attending, Depp also commented on his recent legal loss against The Sun, which had labelled him a “wife-beater.” Depp sued for libel, but a UK judge ruled that “the great majority” of his ex-wife Amber Heard’s assault accusations could be “proved to the civil standard,” — in other words, “wife-beater” is more or less accurate.
Speaking about the decision, Depp said, “It doesn’t matter if a judgement, per se, has taken some artistic license. When there’s an injustice, whether it’s against you or someone you love, or someone you believe in – stand up, don’t sit down. ‘Cause they need you.”
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Depp explained that cancel culture could happen to any of the innocent wife-beaters among us. “It’s so far out of hand now that I can promise you that no one is safe. Not one of you. No one out that door. No one is safe.”
He continued, “It takes one sentence and there’s no more ground, the carpet has been pulled. It’s not just me that this has happened to, it’s happened to a lot of people. This type of thing has happened to women, men. Children have suffered from various types of unpleasantries. Sadly at a certain point they begin to think that it’s normal. Or that it’s them. When it’s not.”
From this, you might have thought the press conference was full of hard hitting questions, but according to Deadline, the moderator rejected most inquiries into Depp’s personal life and legal troubles, instead telling reporters to stick to his career. Later, Depp answered a question in the voice of his Pirates of the Caribbean character Jack Sparrow, “much to the delight of the attending crowd.”
Last month, in his first interview since losing the libel suit, Depp complained that he was being “boycotted” from Hollywood. That might be a bit strong — his new film Minamata recently appeared at the Berlin International Film Festival, and he’ll be starring in the forthcoming crime drama City of Lies as an LAPD detective investigating the murders of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. But he’s certainly losing work. In 2019, Disney announced plans to write him out of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, and J.K. Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts trilogy has replaced him with Mads Mikkelsen.
