Gerard Depardieu recently admitted that not only did he kill a pair of lions in Africa – he ate them too.

Gerard Depardieu Talks Eating Lion

Depardieu, the esteemed French actor and self-professed bon vivant, said that he indulged in a feast of lion in his latest interview with The Independent Magazine. “You ate them?” interviewer Philip Sweener asked in an attempt to clarify the claim.

“Yes,” Depardieu replied. “We broke down on a track in the bush, in Burkina Faso. The two lions waited in front of us and wouldn’t move. Hours passed, and we couldn’t get out of the car, the African driver was very afraid.

“We had no choice; we had to shoot them,” he concluded.

Depardieu first acknowledged the lion shooting in a September interview. “I killed two lions once, and I understand why the lion is the king of the jungle. In legitimate self-defense,” he told French magazine So Film. “Imagine you’re driving and your engine breaks down. You got out, and in your way are these animals. So you shoot, just to scare them.”

“They don’t move,” he added. “I wasn’t there for hunting. I was in Africa for Africa.”

Depardieu also made news in September when he copped to drinking up to 14 bottles of wine per day. “I can’t drink like a normal person,” he told So Film. “I can absorb 12, 13, 14 bottles per day.”

“In the morning, it starts at home with champagne or red wine before 10am, then again champagne,” he said. “Then food, accompanied by two bottles of wine. In the afternoon, champagne, beer and more pastis at around 5pm, to finish off the bottle. Later on, vodka and/or whisky. But I’m never totally drunk, just a little p*****d.”