Writing for the Internet can often seem an act in sustained repetition, and never more so than when, just one day after you’ve written about a celebrity feud that escalates to someone calling someone else a potato, you find yourself writing a similar piece, only with the other vegetable (ugh, whatever, fruit) from “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off.”
On Monday night on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, actor/dog importer Johnny Depp once again addressed the harrowing tale of Pistol, Boo, and the Australian agriculture minister, Barnaby Joyce, who, since the incident in which they were all entwined, has become the country’s Deputy Prime Minister. Only this time, Depp wasn’t responding to the whole thing in a beaten down apology video (as was famously the case after actress/Depp’s girlfriend/terrier “criminal” Amber Heard faced charges for bringing her Yorkshire terriers into the country without properly declaring them; they’d also faced threats by Joyce to have the dogs put down). Rather, Depp’s appearance on Kimmel more of a liberated explainer of the apology, in which he said Joyce looks like he’s “inbred with a tomato — it’s not a criticism,” spawning Tweets like:
This wasn’t the first time Depp’s made fun of his apology. Now he-who-is-accused-of-tomatodom has responded to Depp’s insults. But before we get to his retorts, here’s a rundown of everything else that was said on Monday night:
Kimmel noted that some were calling the apology Depp’s “greatest performance ever.” Depp, meanwhile (not dissimilar to his other performances) said he didn’t watch it afterwards because he “didn’t want to kill” himself. He said, “The choice they made to utilize the taxpayers’ dollars to globally chase down a couple of teacup Yorkies and give them 50 hours to live, I realized the badness of my ways — I was repenting.”
As Time notes, many Australians — even those who openly dislike Joyce — took issue with Depp’s smugness regarding the country’s quarantine laws. And today at a press conference, the Sydney Morning Herald reports that Joyce said he’s “turning into Johnny Depp’s Hannibal Lecter. 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.” He expressed gratitude towards Depp for the free global publicity surrounding the country’s tight biosecurity laws.
Oh, and here’s a related song: