Australian Deputy PM says he’s Johnny Depp’s Hannibal Lecter

Australia’s deputy prime minister boasted that he had got into Johnny Depp’s head like fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter after the Hollywood actor quipped that the ruddy-faced lawmaker appeared to be “inbred with a tomato.”

The exchange spanning half the globe is the latest in a war of words that started a year ago when Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce threatened to have Depp’s pet dogs, Boo and Pistol, put down.

Joyce bluntly said it was time the Yorkshire terriers that had been illegally smuggled into Australia “buggered off back to the United States”.