Johnny Depp Asks Glastonbury: “When Was the Last Time an Actor Assassinated a President?”
Johnny Depp sparked controversy while introducing his movie “The Libertine” at the Glastonbury festival with a comment about assassinating the U.S. president.
Depp is at the U.K. music festival as part of its Cineramageddon event. Presenting the first of the three movies he has selected, he asked festival goers: “Can you bring Trump here?” Responding to subsequent jeers, he said: “You misunderstand completely. When was the last time an actor assassinated a president?”
Depp then added: ““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.”
The BBC reported the news first, and noted that he went on to further qualify his comment, which some read as a reference to the 1885 shooting of Abraham Lincoln by actor John Wilkes Booth.
“By the way, this is going to be in the press and it’ll be horrible,” Depp said. “It’s just a question, I’m not insinuating anything.”
Depp arrived at Glastonbury in a vintage Cadillac and introduced three of his favorite movies: “The Libertine,” “Withnail & I,” and “Dead Man,” before answering questions from the crowd. Filmmaker Julien Temple is curating Cineramageddon.
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