Jenna Ortega addresses ‘crazy’ dating rumors about Johnny Depp

Jenna Ortega is still confused by a certain rumor – and clears it up again.

The “Wednesday” star made headlines last summer after celebrity gossip account Deux Moi falsely reported that she and fellow actor Johnny Depp, 61, were spotted on a date. Although both parties immediately denied it, the rumor still baffles Ortega.

“For me, this is just crazy,” the 21-year-old actor said Monday in an interview with BuzzFeed, the parent company of puppy-themed HuffPost.

“I was on set with Richard E. Grant and he came up to me and just said, 'Oh, so you and Johnny?'” Ortega explained, referring to their upcoming collaboration on “Death of a Unicorn.” “And I laughed because I… I don't know this person.”

Ortega has been a professional actor for over a decade, but her breakthrough role came with a role in the gothic Netflix series “Wednesday,” which was produced and partly directed by Tim Burton, whose 1990 film “Edward Scissorhands” helped make Depp a star.

Those few degrees of separation – and the 23-year age difference between Depp and his ex Amber Heard – probably made the Deux Moi rumor more believable. There were also rumors that Depp would star alongside Ortega in Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. But Depp's reps responded to the gossip almost immediately after it went viral in 2023.

“Mr Depp has no personal or professional relationship with Ms Ortega,” a spokesman for the actor told NME last August. “He has never met or spoken to her. He is not involved in any project with her and has no intention of doing so.”

The actor's representative concluded by saying that Depp was “appalled by these baseless and malicious rumors designed to damage his reputation and career,” suggesting that the rumors were simply too strong to continue following his polarizing defamation trial in 2022.

Ortega herself reportedly denied the rumor last year in a now-deleted Instagram story, but told BuzzFeed on Monday that her first flame was a lot older than her: “I always say my first crush was on Barack Obama… it was during his first election and I was blown away.”

Ortega will soon be seen in Burton's “Beetlejuice” sequel, playing the daughter of a character previously portrayed by Winona Ryder, who famously dated Depp in the early 1990s.