Depp apologizes for assassination joke about Trump
Johnny Depp NEW YORK — apologized Friday for joking about assassinating Donald Trump during an appearance at a large festival in Britain, the latest example of artists using violent imagery when dealing with the president.
“When was the last time an actor assassinated a president?” Depp asked the crowd at Glastonbury Festival, in reference to the death of Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth in 1865. The 54-year-old “Pirates of the Caribbean” star then added: “I want to qualify, I am not an actor. I lie for a living. However, it has been awhile and maybe it is time.”
Depp said in a statement Friday that he did not intend any malice.
“I apologize for the bad joke I attempted last night in poor taste about President Trump,” the statement said. “It did not come out as intended . ... I was only trying to amuse, not to harm anyone.”
The Secret Service said in a statement that it was “aware of the comments in question. For security reasons, we cannot discuss specifically nor in general terms the means and methods of how we perform our protective responsibilities.” Depp was at the festival Thursday to introduce a screening of his 2004 film, “The Libertine.” He seemed to know his comments were going to get him into trouble, prefacing his remarks with, “By the way, this is going to be in the press. It will be horrible.” Depp’s remarks came eight days after a gunman opened fire on Republican lawmakers as they practiced for a charity baseball game.
Depp’s remarks come weeks after The Public Theater in New York was criticized for its production of “Julius Caesar” that portrayed a Trumplike dictator who gets knifed to death onstage. The theater said it never advocates violence as a solution to political problems.
The show followed condemnation for comedian Kathy Griffin, who posed for a photograph in which she gripped a likeness of the president’s severed, bloody head. Pop star Madonna also was criticized for saying at a rally that she had thought “an awful lot about blowing up the White House.”
Other presidents have found themselves the target of celebrity ire, including George W. Bush, who was attacked by the Dixie Chicks and by Kanye West, and Barack Obama, who rocker Ted Nugent wrote on Facebook should “be tried for treason & hung.”
Nugent recently declared he is no longer going to engage in “hateful rhetoric.”