"Maybe
it's time": actor Johnny Depp jokes about a Trump
assassination
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[June 23, 2017]
By Paul Sandle
GLASTONBURY, England
(Reuters) - Johnny Depp courted controversy at Britain's
Glastonbury music festival with a joke about
assassinating Donald Trump, pondering how long it had
been since an actor had killed a U.S. president.
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Depp, 54, was speaking to a crowd on Thursday
evening as he introduced a screening of his 2004 film "The
Libertine" at the music and performing arts festival. Discussion
turned to the topic of U.S. President Trump.
"It is just a question, I'm not insinuating anything... When was
the last time an actor assassinated a president?" Depp asked the
audience, in a possible reference to actor John Wilkes Booth,
who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln in 1865.
"Now I want to clarify, I'm not an actor. I lie for a living.
However, it's been a while, and maybe it's time."
Depp's comments come less than a month after comedian Kathy
Griffin drew strong criticism for posing in photographs holding
up the likeness of a bloody, severed head resembling Trump. CNN
ultimately fired Griffin from its annual New Year's Eve
broadcast over the controversy.
Last week, a gunman shot at Republican lawmakers who were
practicing for a charity baseball game.
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The Secret Service said in a statement to ABC that it actively
monitored open source reporting, including social media networks and
evaluates potential threats.
"For security reasons, we cannot discuss specifically nor in general
terms the means and methods of how we perform our protective
responsibilities," the Secret Service said.
Depp, the face of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise,
seemed aware his comments might spur controversy.
"This is going to be in the press," he said before making the
comments. "It will be horrible."
(Reporting by Paul Sandle and Brendan O'Brien; Writing by Alistair
Smout; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Ralph Boulton)
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