Throughout a media briefing prior to his Donostia Awards luncheon at the San Sebastian Film Festival, Johnny Depp was only supposed to be asked questions about his work. Depp, on the other hand, did not hold back in reply to one reporter’s daring effort to dissect the actor’s ideas on so-called “cancel culture” and how social networking may affect prominent figures.
Depp called it a “difficult scenario” since it “may be considered as a historical event that occurred for however much it lasted, this cancel culture or this fast jump to conclusions based on fundamentally what amounts to toxic air that is…,” he exhaled.
When asked if he felt safe in such a connected society, Depp responded, “Yeah, I do,” before going on to make several near misses before refuting himself. “I’m sure of the many movements that arose with the finest of intentions…”
He trailed off again, obviously searching for the appropriate words, and then moved a little, saying that, in his judgment, “I can assure you that no one is safe today that things have gotten so out of hand. Not a single one of you. None of you… as long as someone is willing to utter a single sentence There is no more ground to cover with just one sentence. The rug has been yanked.”
Depp and his former spouse, actress Amber Heard, are currently embroiled in the aftermath of a highly publicized divorce. Depp is presently suing Heard, his ex-wife, for writing an op-ed in the Washington Post in 2018 about her experience as a domestic assault victim. She didn’t identify Depp in the op-ed, but during their 2016 divorce, she charged him of family violence.
In November 2020, Depp lost a libel lawsuit in the United Kingdom against the publishers of The Sun, a British tabloid, which claimed in a 2018 article that he was a “wife abuser.” The statements were found to be “basically true” by the judge.