KEY POINTS

  • "Addams Family" star Christina Ricci recalled her first awakening about homosexuality when she was 9 years old
  • Ricci revealed that it was Johnny Depp who explained to her what homosexuality was
  • Ricci was on the set of her film "Mermaids" in 1999, which also starred Depp's then-girlfriend Winona Ryder, during the conversation

“Addams Family” star Christina Ricci revealed that she first learned about homosexuality from Johnny Depp when she was 9 years old.

During an episode of SiriusXM's "Andy Cohen Live” Wednesday, the 42-year-old actress shared that while filming her first movie “Mermaids” in 1991, she had a conversation with the 59-year-old actor. The film also starred Winona Ryder, Depp’s then-girlfriend.

“Johnny is actually the person who explained to me what homosexuality was when I was nine,” Ricci told host Andy Cohen when asked if Ryder was still with Depp while he was filming the “Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas” film in 1998.

"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.”

Ricci also explained that the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star was able to describe homosexuality in the most “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 said, adding that she only responded with an “OK.”

Following her encounter with Depp, they reunited in the films “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” in 1998, “Sleepy Hollow” in 1999 and “The Man Who Cried” in 2000.

The “Watch What Happens Live” host said he didn’t expect that Ricci only became aware of what homosexuality was years after starring in “The Addams Family” and having a “sleepover at Cher’s.” He also assumed that it was during the filming of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”

But the actress immediately denied his assumptions, saying that it was on the set of “Mermaids” when she was only 9 years old.

“No, that would have been totally insane. What did I think was happening?” Ricci said.

"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, or, I mean, you've got Cher [Goddess of Pop] in the next trailer," Cohen replied.

Christina Ricci at the 2013 Met Gala
Christina Ricci in Vivienne Westwood at the 2013 Met Gala. Reuters