BLACK/startraksphoto.comIt seems we hear rumors almost daily that some celebrity has met his maker—usually either snowboarding in Switzerland (see Luke Perry, Adam Sandler, Owen Wilson) or falling off a cliff in New Zealand (we're looking at you Jeff Goldblum and Brad Pitt).
Usually, we can chalk that up to the infamous Global Associated News, which generates fake death stories that spread like wildfire on the Web.
But when it comes to a recent report about Johnn Depp, was The Pirates of the Caribbean star really this close to being a dead man?
E! News investigated, and the answer is…
So true! (If you ask Johnny, that is.)
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the 48-year-old thesp feared for his life when he and Rum Diary director Bruce Robinson were flying to Los Angeles on a private jet and the engines cut out unexpectedly.
At that moment in a surreal scene straight out of a movie, both looked at each other in terror, thinking the same thing.
"The plane just shut down. The sound of the engines stopped. There was silence," the paper quotes Depp as telling (the aptly titled) Live magazine. "Bruce and I were looking at each other and I think I said, 'Is this it?' It was like this weird extended moment when you're just floating for a second and you could feel this unpleasant descent."
"Nobody said a word except for Bruce and I, sitting next to each other saying, 'Oh s--t! This is death; I guess this is how it goes down,'" he said. "Then we burst into hysterical laughter at the idea that this was how we were going to die."
Luckily the Ninth Gate this wasn't. The engines restarted in the nick of time and the plane continued on its way, but not before leaving a relieved Depp and Robinson sharing a special something.
"Suddenly the engines started back up again and we were climbing back up," remembered Depp. "I guess you say that was a big bonding experience for Bruce and me. For a moment there, we were going down together."
Speaking for all Depp fans, we're happy to hear Johnny's alive and well.