mar 31, 2014 - VANITY FAIR Johnny Depp Entertained Allen Ginsberg’s Shameless Flirtations During the Beat Poet’s Final Years

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When God created Johnny Depp, he created a human being to whom all men, women, and living creatures would be attracted, regardless of their sexual orientation or fondness for men’s eyeliner. He also created the type of kind, bookish soul who would gladly entertain the overt flirtations of a male literary icon in his twilight years. We learn as much in a new Q&A with Depp, conducted by Iggy Pop and published in Interview magazine, during which Depp confesses that he became close friends with Ginsberg in the 90s, and let the late Beat Generation poet flirt shamelessly with him on a number of occasions. (Also, it bears noting that Depp is not the only far-younger male with whom Ginsberg flirted.)

I met [Ginsberg] when we were doing this documentary called The United States of Poetry in 1995—I was reading some Kerouac for the movie. Afterward, I offered to give him a ride home. . . . He was a relentless flirt. Every time I saw him, he’d want to hold hands. It was sweet. I think he just wanted affection, on whatever level.

This is not the first time that Depp has referenced Ginsberg’s crush on him. After Ginsberg’s 1997 death, Depp published an essay about his late friend, elaborating on the time he visited Ginsberg’s apartment:

He flirted unabashedly and nonstop for the duration of my visit, even allowing me to smoke, as long as I sat next to the kitchen window and exhaled in that direction. He kindly signed a book to me and a couple of autographs (one for my brother, of course), and then I made my way back to the hotel, only to have already received a call from him, inviting me to some kind of something or other.

And on another occasion, the duo shared an intimate backseat ride through California:

[H]e reached over and took me by the hand, and just held my hand, for, like, I dunno, [an] hour and a half?—we were just driving around, talking and stuff—and he just wanted to hold hands, you know, like the comfort of, I don’t know, holding someone’s hand, like a friend, or whatever. It was just such a beautiful gesture. From anyone else you’d go, “Whoa, whoa, hang on a minute now,” no no. It wasn’t like that at all, it was . . . he just wanted to hold hands, he just wanted comfort, he just wanted to feel another person’s pulse or something. It was amazing.

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