The story involves Cher, Winona Ryder, the movie “Mermaids” and someone on set who “might be homophobic”
Christina Ricci is recalling the first time she learned about homosexuality.
While appearing on Wednesday’s episode of SiriusXM’s “Andy Cohen Live,” the actress revealed that Johnny Depp explained to her what homosexuality was when she was nine years old.
At the time, Ricci was on the set of her first film — the 1990 comedy-drama “Mermaids” — which also starred Depp’s then-girlfriend Winona Ryder, whom Ricci revealed set up the conversation between her and Depp.
“Johnny [Depp] is actually the person who explained to me what homosexuality was when I was nine,” Ricci, 42, told host Andy Cohen, who asked how the particular topic came up.
“There was something going on on set and someone was not being nice to someone else. And they were like, ‘Oh, well he might be homophobic,'” she recalled. “And then I was like, ‘Well, I don’t understand what that is.’ And I was in Winona’s [Ryder] trailer and she was like, ‘I don’t know how…’ so she put me on the phone with Johnny. And Johnny explained it to me.”
The “Yellowjackets” star said Depp described homosexuality in “the simplest terms” and “very matter-of-factly.”
“He [was] like, ‘It’s when a man wants to have sex with a man. And when a woman wants to have sex with a woman,'” she shared. “And I was like, ‘Ah okay.'”
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Cohen highlighted the fact that Ryder had Depp explain the meaning of homosexuality to Ricci, instead of doing it herself or having her reach out to Cher, who also starred in “Mermaids.”
“I love it that Winona Ryder had to put you on the phone with Johnny Depp to get that story, that she couldn’t spit it out in some way,” he said, “or, I mean, you’ve got Cher in the next trailer.”
Ricci joked, “I know we should’ve run right over there.”
Ryder, 50, and Depp, 59, began dating in 1989, the same year during which “Mermaids” was shot. The former couple — who starred together in the 1990 film “Edward Scissorhands” — got engaged only five months after their first date, before ultimately calling it quits in 1993.
