Jelena Gavrilovic Apologizes to Johnny Depp

Serbian actress Jelena Gavrilovic posted a photo with Johnny Depp, taken at the Hollywood Vampires concert at Zagreb Arena. She shared the pictures on Instagram, and Serbian media picked up the post on September 8.

The concert took place on September 3. It was originally scheduled for Pula Arena, but the production’s technical requirements pushed it to Zagreb, with the date and time staying the same. The show marked the band’s first appearance in Croatia.

Hollywood Vampires is made up of Alice Cooper, Joe Perry, Johnny Depp and Tommy Henriksen. Cooper, Perry and Depp founded the band in 2012 to pay tribute to rock and roll’s biggest names, especially musicians from the 1970s. Henriksen joined the lineup later, and the band has released two studio albums so far.

Gavrilovic was in the crowd and, by all appearances, thrilled with the show. She posted several photos on Instagram, ranging from wide shots of the arena and the concert atmosphere to a picture of herself with Depp, which drew by far the most reaction from her followers and the most media attention. Even though that photo with the Hollywood star is exactly why the story reached Serbian outlets, the actress gave top billing in her caption to the guitarist, along with a joking line aimed squarely at Depp.

“My favorite Vampire, Tommy Henriksen. Sorry, Johnny Depp. Incredible night, killer show. Hollywood Vampires,” Jelena Gavrilovic wrote in the caption of her post.

The message quickly became a hit with her followers, precisely because of that line to Depp. In her own style, the actress admitted that Henriksen was her favorite member of the band that night, then apologized to Depp, with a smile, for not landing at the top of her personal list of favorite Vampires.

The post lands at a moment when Hollywood Vampires is back in the regional spotlight, since the Zagreb show was one of the rare chances for audiences from the region to see, live, a band that brings together Alice Cooper, Joe Perry and Johnny Depp on the same stage. The fact that the concert was first announced for Pula, then moved to Zagreb while keeping the same date and time, also says something about how complicated the tour’s logistics got in the final weeks before the show.

For Gavrilovic, the photo with Depp ended up being just one part of a bigger night at the concert rather than the main reason to celebrate. That much is clear from the order of her caption: she praised Henriksen first, and only then, in jest, addressed Depp. That approach, in which a well known actress does not turn a meeting with one of Hollywood’s biggest stars into a spectacle, fits the tone of how she described the whole evening, an unforgettable night and a great show, without any extra emphasis on Depp being the main draw for her.

Hollywood Vampires has performed on and off since forming in 2012, depending on each member’s other commitments, and has so far released two studio albums of covers and original songs paying tribute to the rock and roll era of the 1970s. The Zagreb show, as the band’s first in Croatia, further raised interest among regional audiences, and Jelena Gavrilovic’s photo with Depp is just one of the moments left over from that night.

Neither Cooper, nor Perry, nor Henriksen were overshadowed by Depp that night, according to what Gavrilovic wrote. Quite the opposite: guitarist Henriksen, in her account, was the real star of the concert, and in the same breath she offered Depp a slightly ironic correction, as if to tell him that Hollywood fame was not the deciding factor in this case. Either way, the post remains one of the rare moments in which someone from Serbia’s entertainment scene, after one of this band’s shows, sent a personal, joking message directly to Depp.