Officials at The White House have blasted Johnny Depp, after the actor joked about assassinating U.S. President Donald Trump while addressing an audience at the UK’s Glastonbury music festival.
Depp was introducing a screening of his film The Libertine when he made the remarks. He initially asked “can you bring Trump here?”, which reportedly led to booing and jeering from the attendees, but he continued:
“No, no, no, you misunderstood completely. I think he needs … help. When was the last time an actor assassinated a president? I want to qualify, I am not an actor. I lie for a living. However, it has been a while and maybe it is time.”
His remarks were presumably in reference to John Wilkes Booth, the actor who assassinated president Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theater in Washington in 1865.
Depp conceded that his remarks were definitely “going to be in the press”, and they were, drawing the ire of White House press secretary Sean Spicer, who issued a statement saying:
“President Trump has condemned violence in all forms and it’s sad that others like Johnny Depp have not followed his lead. I hope that some of Mr Depp’s colleagues will speak out against this type of rhetoric as strongly as they would if his comments were directed to a Democrat elected official.”
Depp has since made a statement of his own to People apologising for his “bad joke” which he says was in “poor taste.” “It did not come out as intended, and I intended no malice,” he said. “I was only trying to amuse, not to harm anyone.”
Source: People.
Photo: Samir Hussein / Getty.
