Johnny Depp was trying to make a point about the invasiveness and emotional violence of photo shoots, but he reached for the wrong metaphor and lit up the Internet in the process. "Well, you just feel like you're being raped somehow," he said in a Vanity Fair interview excerpted online before its release on newsstands.

"Raped ... It feels like a kind of weird -- just weird, man."

You just knew an apology was on its way, both because of the uproar and because, honestly, that was a pretty silly thing to say. Sure enough, Depp released a statement Wednesday morning (October 5). "I am truly sorry for offending anyone in any way. I never meant to. It was a poor choice of words on my part in an effort to explain a feeling," he said.

Depp is currently in the midst of promoting "The Rum Diary," his long-delayed adaptation of the Hunter S. Thompson novel, and his Vanity Fair comments come at an inopportune time. The U.S. press day for the film is set to kick off next week, so the actor is likely to face another round of explanations, much in the way [article id="1671126"]Brad Pitt recently did[/article] after making what were construed to be negative comments about his marriage to Jennifer Aniston while promoting "Moneyball."

When it comes to ill-advised analogies between press obligations and rape, Depp finds himself in the company of Kristen Stewart. Last summer while promoting "Eclipse," the actress compared the crush of paparazzi cameras to sexual assault. "I feel like I'm looking at someone being raped," she told British Elle. "A lot of the time I can't handle it."

[article id="1640763"]Stewart soon apologized[/article] for making what she dubbed "an enormous mistake."

Depp echoed that sentiment in his statement. "I understand there is no comparison and I am very regretful. In an effort to correct my lack of judgment, please accept my heartfelt apology," he said.