Life

Sleb Safari: Johnny Depp's dogs are on death row Down Under

Johnny Depp and his wife Amber Heard have been accused of 'sneaking' their two dogs into Australia and bypassing quarantine
Johnny Depp and his wife Amber Heard have been accused of 'sneaking' their two dogs into Australia and bypassing quarantine Johnny Depp and his wife Amber Heard have been accused of 'sneaking' their two dogs into Australia and bypassing quarantine
By Maeve Connolly

AND so to Australia where the agriculture minister has been fighting the #WarOnTerrier thanks to actor Johnny Depp ‘smuggling’ two Yorkshire terriers into the country.

It kicked off when the Aussies discovered that Depp and his wife had bypassed quarantine regulations when they arrived with their dogs by private jet last month.

The country’s no-nonsense agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce was not best pleased and told the actor that if his dogs didn’t “bugger off” back to the US in 48 hours they faced death or deportation.

“And if people think that's a bit harsh, well I'll tell you what harsh is,” Barnaby elaborated.

“Harsh is if we let down our guard and ultimately rabies gets into the country.”

And like that he put the Depp dogs on death row and Australia took to Twitter which gave birth to the #WarOnTerrier hashtag and a perfect storm of jokes and memes.

As someone who loves dogs (but not enough to catch rabies), Sleb Safari can understand why Barnaby was riled.

He told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that if Boo and Pistol weren’t taken out of the country “we do have to euthanise them”.

“Just because he’s Johnny Depp doesn’t make him exempt from Australian laws,” he chided.

“The way this works is if we are going to make an excuse for Johnny Depp because he’s got a private jet and brought in his dogs than I suppose you have to start making exemptions and excuses for everybody.

“The reason you can walk through a park in Brisbane and not sort of have in the back of your mind 'What happens if a rabid dog comes out and bites me or bites my kid?' is because we’ve kept that disease out.

“I’ll tell you how close it is – it’s in Bali; it’s just next door, so this is not fanciful stuff and therefore we’re very diligent about what comes into our nation.”

Mr Joyce said Boo and Pistol’s illegal status came to light when they were taken to a dog groomer. The pair of them must have gotten too chatty under the dryers.

Sleb Safari knows Johnny likes to think of himself as an eccentric but he gave his dogs ridunkulous names.

Imagine calling out “Boo... Pistol” after you’d let them off the leash – Sleb Safari’s surprised Johnny hasn’t found himself in a headlock by now.

Of course Barnaby might yet oblige...

CELEBRITY COMPOUND SOUNDS LIKE AN OLD PEOPLE'S HOME

ALTHOUGH often sympathetic to the plight of the common garden celebrity trying to drop its child off at the school gate during a paparazzi feeding frenzy having thrown on whatever was lying on the bedroom carpet – namely red leather trousers, a silk blouse and Christian Louboutins – Sleb Safari fears some are taking it too far with their expectations of privacy.

Allow Sleb Safari to introduce you to Hidden Hills, the new celebrity compound in the LA suburbs which has a massive fence around the perimeter and is made up of 600 houses on two square miles of land boasting country lanes with cutesy names such as Round Meadow and Long Valley.

So far so very The Truman Show, wouldn’t you say?

So private is Hidden Hills that Google Streetview draws a blank and every home is linked to security at the front gate so visitors can never arrive unannounced.

Who lives in Hidden Hills, you ask – and well you might. Jennifer Lopez has a MacMansion slap bang in the middle of it, along with Kim and Kanye, Drake, Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber – in short, the world’s worst book club. Sleb Safari has never been more grateful to be a commoner.

:: The winners of a copy of Byddi Lee's debut novel March to November are Doris Moore from Carrickfergus, Anne Smyth from Monaghan and Siobhán Sheppard from Annaclone.

AMAL INTERROGATES GEORGE'S WARDROBE

SLEB Safari has found that it is strangely in sync with Amal Clooney on many things and the latest is George’s fashion sense.

George and his buddy Rande Gerber have a tequila business and wear T-shirts with the company logo all the time – and Sleb Safari doesn’t mean when they’re gardening, it's talking about film premieres and all sorts of inappropriate events.

It vexes Sleb Safari. And apparently it vexes Amal too, according to George who says: “She has great style sense. And sometimes she will look at me and she’ll be looking a little confused about my own style. Sometimes she will ask: “Uh, are you going to wear that tequila T-shirt again?”

God bless you Amal, not only have you taken George off the shelf but you’re weaning him off those T-shirts. Sleb Safari thanks you.

SQUAWK SQUAWK