Johnny Depp Calls Australian Deputy Prime Minister A ‘Tomato’ On Kimmel

https://youtu.be/zRYYt5kGBZY

Johnny Depp is feuding with, of all people, the Australian Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, and has resorted to name-calling. Depp expressed his concern for Joyce on Kimmel on Tuesday night, saying he (Joyce) looked like he was “inbred with a tomato.”

“He [Joyce] looks somehow inbred with a tomato. It’s not a criticism, I’m just saying, I was a little worried … he might explode,” Depp said to Jimmy Kimmel.

Johnny Depp takes a swipe at Deputy PM @Barnaby_Joyce saying he ‘looks somehow inbred with a tomato’ pic.twitter.com/fblyJr1k3y

— Jo Hall (@Jo_Hall9) May 25, 2016

But Depp’s nemesis, Barnaby Joyce, shot back at his remarks with humor, the Guardian reports. In a press conference on Wednesday morning, Joyce told reporters the following.

“I think I’m turning into Johnny Depp’s Hannibal Lecter, aren’t I? […] I’m inside his head, I’m pulling little strings and pulling little levers. Long after I’ve forgotten about Mr Depp, he’s remembering me.”

The Australian Deputy PM Joyce’s words serve both as an insult to Johnny Depp, and also as an air that he, Joyce, is above all the name-calling — that he has already “forgotten” all about Depp.

While it may seem unlikely for an American actor and an Australian politician to be fighting over anything at all, let alone with references to Hannibal and vegetables, this Depp-Joyce word war is because of last-year’s “dog-smuggling” incident when Johnny Depp’s wife, Amber Heard, illegally brought her two terriers — Boo and Pistol — into Australia while on vacation.

Barnaby Joyce, who is also the agriculture minister, made international news when he threatened to kill Depp’s dogs if they did not “bugger off” immediately, as reported by ABC.

“Mr Depp either has to take his dogs back to California or we’re going to have to euthanase [brit.] them… It’s time that Pistol and Boo buggered off back to the United States.”

While the dogs, Pistol and Boo, did indeed “bugger off,” Depp and his wife, Amber Heard, have stayed to wage a legal war against Australia; this culminated in a public apology video ordered by a Queensland court that has been popularly hailed as “awkward,” and somewhat like a “hostage” video, as reported by Time.

“Declare everything when you enter Australia.”

On Kimmel, a play-back of this video drew laughter and snorts from the audience, and a declaration from host Jimmy Kimmel that Australia is a “dumb” country.

Johnny Depp au Jimmy Kimmel Live #Kimmel 23/05/2016 #3 pic.twitter.com/263be53LA8

— Johnny DEPP (@TopDepp) May 24, 2016

Johnny Depp also took the opportunity to mock the surreal nature of this issue — that two miniature terriers (“teacup yorkies,” Depp called them) were subject to international attention for breaking border laws. When asked with his current relationship with the Australian government, he told Kimmel the following.

“I think the choice they made to utilise the taxpayers’ dollars to globally chase down a couple of teacup yorkies and give them 50 hours to live … I realised the badness of my ways so I was kind of repenting.”

The idea of an international dog chase does, indeed, seem ridiculous, and it was this aspect of the case that Depp continually played up on his interview with Jimmy Kimmel.

As reported by the Guardian, Johnny Depp ridiculed the entire issue, telling Kimmel that “‘an absolute genius’ had written the apology and [that] it was directed by an iPhone but there may have been more than one take because ‘sometimes you have to giggle a little’.”

But, in the end, it was none other than Barnaby Joyce who got the last laugh when he mocked Depp’s general handling of the issue. According to ABC, Joyce called Depp “a frog in a sock.”

“At the end of it we’ve got a message that is going all around the world right now, it’s going off like a frog in a sock telling people that if you come into this nation and you don’t obey our laws, you’re in trouble.”

Additionally, in response to Depp’s calling him a “tomato,” on Kimmel, Joyce humorously told ABC that he would rather be a vegetable that is “sleek and sensitive, just like me.”

[Photo by Ian Gavan/Getty Images]