Johnny Depp arrives at Cannes in the eye of a very ugly storm
Cannes' decision to include Depp's film Jeanne du Barry in it's opening night slate has drawn criticism from those who feel the festival uplifts abusers
Aux News Johnny Depp
Following a legal loss in the U.K. and a legal victory in the U.S. concerning the alleged abuse of his wife Amber Heard, Johnny Depp arrived at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday for the premiere of his new film Jeanne du Barry. The film marks Depp’s return to the big screen for the first time in three years, having been mired in controversy over his personal life.
Depp plays French monarch Louis XV opposite the film’s director, Maiwenn, as the king’s favored mistress. Maiwenn herself has been the subject of controversy, recently admitting to assaulting a journalist who was investigating sexual misconduct allegations against her ex-husband Luc Besson.
“She’s outspokenly anti-#MeToo and she made a gesture to please her world, and that’s why she bragged about it on TV. We could see a sort of pride that echoed that world,” journalist Edwy Plenel told Variety. The filmmaker reportedly grabbed Plenel by the hair and spit in his face during an altercation in March. “I don’t know Maiwenn, I never met her. I would have been unable to recognize her,” said Plenel, the founder and editor-in-chief of French investigative outlet Mediapart. “This aggression caused more stupor than anything else. She didn’t attack just me individually, but the symbol that I represent, as the founder and director of a journal, which in France has been at the forefront of all the #MeToo revelations.”
Depp’s presence has put a perhaps uncomfortable spotlight on the festival. Juror Brie Larson pushed back on a question directed to her about Depp’s involvement, saying she didn’t “understand the correlation” of why she was specifically being questioned about it. (Per Deadline, the journalist referenced her as an “outspoken advocate for Time’s Up.”) “I’ll see it when I see it,” Larson said of Jeanne du Barry. “I don’t know how I feel about it frankly.”
Festival head Thierry Frémaux claimed he didn’t “know the image of Johnny Depp in the United States” while defending the choice to program Jeanne du Barry at the festival (via Deadline). “He is extraordinary in the film in a role which is difficult. I don’t why he was cast. You will have to ask Maïwenn her reasons for choosing him,” Frémaux said. “For the rest, I’m the last person to talk to about this because if there is one person in the world who is not interested in this very mediatized process, it’s me. I am interested in Johnny Depp as an actor.”
Ultimately, Depp was greeted with warmth on the Cannes red carpet, reportedly “swarmed” (per TMZ) by fans and signing plenty of autographs. Per Variety, a press conference will follow the premiere, which may end up touching on the various controversies the movie has courted.
42 Comments
It bewilders a bit on how “don’t be a domestic abuser/don’t use your hands to enforce your will or frustration on your significant other/family” just is utterly not a thing for some folks.
The fact that they lucked into a ton of money only seems to amplify things.
Nobody had to abuse anybody for me to be wretchedly sick of this guy.
Seriously. He’d been in a long string of must-miss films since (and, arguably, including) Black Mass. I haven’t given a shit about him since Blow (which lived up to its name in at least one way) and the sight of his alcohol-bloated, tobacco-cured cadaver in Life’s Too Short just sealed the deal.
As for the trial, the only reason I gave a shit was that I have several DV survivors in my family and friend group, and I knew how bad that terrible, terrible verdict would be for accusers moving forward.
Oh my god soooooo brave of you on all counts. Congratulations.
Spit on my face and tell me that you love me!
Okay but it will be $20, same as in town
The correct spelling of the word in the sub-headline is “its.”
I also think it should be Cannes’s.
He wrote “its” not “tits”
I know that! It was a declaration of love!
AV Club, apparently new to this whole Cannes thing.
Nice Cannes!
He really hates this Cannes!
I wish I had more than one star to give!
This had me wheeze-giggling for a full minute. Thank you; take the star.
Yep, I think they have a special chair there for Roman Polanski.
and a much smaller chair for his significant other.
They got her out of school early for this?
I wouldn’t have known who Maïwenn was until the other day’s article about The Professional, and how she became Luc Besson’s teenaged bride. This whole thing just sounds like a whole bunch of ‘nope’.
La France!
HE’S BACK BABY! Let the bedshitting begin!!
Aw cute! Steven Tyler and Johnny Depp are holding hands!
A scarves peddler’s dream come true…
Lady, they’re puttin’ my kids through college!
Truly!
Well, they’re both over the hill rock creeps. A least Depp mostly stuck to abusing women above the legal age
Yeah, he’s got that going for him!I’m the biggest Joe Perry fan, but how many pervy creeps is he in bands with? Dude must have blinders the size of Texas.
Man, it might be time to take a good look at Joe. Judged by the company you keep and all. I used to think Depp was pretty cool, mostly based on Nightmare on Elm Street, Ed Wood, and Fear and Loathing…
No one’s questioning he’s had a great career. It’s that personal life that makes me need a rape shower. Tyler’s sold a ton of albums and written some of my favorite songs.
Did they stop being French from last year to this year?
Maïwenn has had a fucked up life, so I can’t help but sympathize a bit, but I also can’t help but wish she’d just fuck off. By her own account her childhood was awful and both her parents physically abused her regularly. Then she meets Besson when she’s 12, he was 29, and start “dating” when she was fucking 15 and is pregnant by 16. And let’s be clear, they were surely “dating” before she was 15. When she’s 20 Besson leaves her for Jovovich on the set of The Fifth Element and to this day she defends him. Besson groomed her, raped her, and only got away with it because of France’s fucked up age of consent laws, then he made fucking a movie alluding to their “love story” with Leon (The Professional) that Maïwenn confirmed, “this love story between a 12-year-old girl and a 30-year-old man [that] was still very much inspired by ours.”(Side note: their relationship was known by the international press at the time, yet Besson got big budget films with huge stars AND still fucking does!)Since then, Besson has been credibly accused of multiple rapes of young women through the investigative reporting like Plenel’s. Maïwenn’s was response was to recently see him in a restaurant, grab him by the hair and spit in his face, which she entirely admits to, but says she doesn’t want to get into it until after the premiere of her movie. The cases ended up being dismissed due to “lack of evidence” at around the same time two separate high profile cases, where adult men were acquitted for having sex with 11 year old girls. 11 YEAR OLD GIRLS! One of whom got pregnant. The laws allowed for “consent” even at that age. That lead to France to changing the law in 2021 so that relations under 15 are statutory rape in all cases. Not enough, but I digress.When it comes to Maïwenn, she’s been a victim of a lot of awful stuff her whole life, and that obviously forms your experience, but she’s literally been an advocate for this same misogynistic, abusive system to continue. In recent interviews she’s said that women that feel abused by men are “fragile,” that feminists “don’t like men,” while also saying that if a filmmaker wants to talk about a role after having a couple drinks you should obviously know they expect them to fuck you. And… that’s…. fine… in her mind. Or her saying “When I hear women complaining that men are only interested in their bottom, I tell them, ‘Enjoy it because it won’t last!’”
Also, she’s the Blue Man’s Group Alien Lady in Fifth Element
holy crap. that’s really sad.
probably anyone that experienced that level of abuse with that level of public complicity would behave similarly. I’m sure her attitude towards other women suffering abuse is just her way to mentally survive what was done to her.her working with Depp, who inflicted horrible abuse as well and the world cheered him on, is feeding a very fucked up part of her.
Wow, I knew a little about her and Besson, but seeing it all like that is crazy.
I was going to read this, but then I saw another article titled “the best red carpet arrivals from the 2023 Cannes film festival” right here on this same website!
France gonna France. I mean, here’s Samantha Geimer taking selfies with Polanksi and putting them on her Instagram, fer cryin’ out loud…https://nypost.com/2023/05/01/roman-polanski-poses-for-smiling-photo-with-samantha-geimer/
Yeh, how dare she think of herself as anything but a victim?
It’s weird that Brie Larson pushed back on that Johnny Depp question since she seemed to have no problem with making her feelings known about Casey Affleck.
Depp and Heard both suck, but her being exiled from show business and he getting a premiere at Cannes and a multi-million dollar Dior campaign despite not having put out a good movie since like 2006 (or whenever Sweeney Todd came out) is pretty much by-the-numbers industry shit-headdery.