Johnny Depp spoke at length about what he deemed “cancel culture” during a pre-festival press conference on Wednesday.
Ahead of being given an honorary award at the San Sebastian Film Festival, as first reported by Deadline, Depp criticized “this instant rush to judgment” and told those listening to “stand up” against what he described as injustices.
“Do I feel safe myself? Yeah, I do, I do now,” Depp said at one point in the presser, as seen in the tweeted clip below. “Because it’s important when you’re faced with something as mind-bogglingly bewildering, that sort of thing hits you from many, many angles. … However, it’s so far out of hand now that I could promise you that no one is safe. Not one of you. Not anyone out that door. No one is safe as long as someone is willing to say one sentence. It takes one sentence and then there’s no more ground.”
From there, Depp said it’s “not just me that this has happened to,” claiming that even children have been affected.
“This type of thing has happened to women, men,” he said. “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.”
Prior to the festival, a number of filmmakers criticized the decision to give Depp the honorary award, saying that the move spoke “very badly of the festival and its leadership” and sent a “terrible message to the public.”
In March, a British court rejected Depp’s attempt to appeal a previous ruling on his libel lawsuit against the publisher of the Sun for calling him a “wife beater” in an article about his relationship with Amber Heard. In November, a High Court Justice ruled that the printed allegations against Depp were “substantially true.”
Depp and Heard married in February 2015. Prior to their 2017 divorce, Heard accused Depp of emotional and physical abuse. In the years since, various legal actions related to those allegations have made the news. Heard penned an op-ed for the Washington Post in late 2018 detailing her exit from an abusive relationship. In response to the op-ed, Depp sued Heard, alleging defamation.
