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Barnaby Joyce calls Johnny Depp an 'old trout' in shock swipe

Former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has slammed Hollywood star Johnny Depp in an unexpected interview on 60 Minutes.

The Aussie MP famously had a bizarre and very public feud with the A-list star and his then-wife Amber Heard back in October 2015 that briefly but sensationally threw him into the Hollywood limelight over the pair’s dogs illegally entering the country.

Barnaby Joyce slams Johnny Depp on 60 Minutes
Barnaby has unleashed on Johnny Depp calling him an 'old trout' in a new interview. Photo: Nine

Now Joyce has unexpectedly broken his silence on the whole debacle more than four years on, letting loose at the duo in light of their current bitter libel battle being fought in London’s high court.

Appearing on 60 Minutes Barnaby took aim at Johnny, pointing to the shambolic situation he is currently in as a parry to his 2016 comments about the Nationals MP.

“Hey Johnny look where your life ended up you old trout,” he said on Sunday evening in response to a question about Depp’s famously brutal dig at the politician on national US television.

Amber Heard and Johnny Depp 2015 Australia dogs entry
Amber Heard and Johnny Depp became embroiled in a bizarre feud with Joyce after illegally bringing their dogs into Australia. Photo: Getty Images

The feud kicked off in late 2015 after Johnny and then-wife Amber Heard had illegally brought the pair’s two Yorkshire Terriers, Pistol and Boo into the country without a permit, an offence she faced criminal proceedings over.

Then the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Joyce was a vocal opponent of the pair at the time, famously threatening to have the dogs euthanised if they didn’t ‘bugger back off to the United States’.

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Eventually, the pair took their dogs home and in 2016 were forced to issue a public apology that went viral for it’s ‘humiliating’ depiction of the pair being forced to backtrack like naughty children.

Johnny Depp and Amber Heard apologise for bringing dogs into Australia illegally
Johnny Depp and Amber Heard were forced to apologise in a video Joyce called 'humiliating'. Photo: Getty Images

Depp later hit back, internationally humiliating Joyce by calling him a 'sweaty, big-gutted man from Australia who was inbred with a tomato' on Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2016.

It seems Barnaby had the last laugh after all, however, after allegations made in court that Amber Heard knew she was breaking the law with the dogs, and even accusations that she was attempting to find a vet to falsify documents at the time.

Of the debacle, Barnaby said the pair were ‘not above the law’, and claimed he went after the duo despite pushback in Canberra.

Ultimately he has no regrets over the now-infamous video of the duo, telling the program it was was he wanted.

"As far as I was concerned, they looked like two people in a basement in Beirut,” he said. “I wanted it. I thought it looked totally humiliating,"

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