You may remember, Gerard Depardieu has been publicly feuding with the French government over their recently-introduced 75 percent tax on millionaires. As the P Diddy of France, with much to lose from the many millions stored in mucousy pouches in his great torso, Depardieu protested the tax by moving across the border to Belgium, whereupon the French government retaliated by threatening to revoke his passport. Smelling a publicity opportunity, Russia’s shirtless action-man president Vladimir Putin publicly offered Gerard Depardieu a passport from Russia, where Gerard Depardieu had been filming a movie about Rasputin. Depardieu accepted, leading to the incredible picture you see above and the magnificent news lede below:

MOSCOW — The day after receiving his new Russian passport from President Vladimir Putin, French actor Gerard Depardieu flew Sunday to the provincial town of Saransk, where he was greeted as a local hero and offered an apartment for free.

As you can see, the man fits right in.

Putin granted his request last week and then welcomed the actor late Saturday to his residence [Putin's residence, that is. -Ed] in Sochi, the host city of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Russian television showed the two men embracing and then chatting over supper, discussing a soon-to-be-released film in which Depardieu plays Russian monk Grigory Rasputin.

Depardieu flew Sunday to Saransk, a town about 300 miles east of Moscow, where he was met at a snow-covered airport by the governor and a group of women in traditional costume singing folk songs. He flashed his new passport to the crowd before setting out on a tour of the town.

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Little-Known Fact: Gerard Depardieu drinks wine through his giant nose like a French anteater

It turns out Gerard Depardieu, a man so French he has an actual baguette for a nose and sighs snails when he gets huffy, is no longer even a French resident. He now lives just across the border in Belgium, and even more surprising, he wasn’t lured there by a pretty lady cat who got some paint spilled on her. No, it was zee taxes. Or more accurately, zee lack zair of.

French star Gerard Depardieu has upped the ante in his tax battle with the government of French President Francois Hollande, threatening to hand back his French passport in protest.

In an open letter to President Hollande and French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault published Sunday in Le Journal du Dimanche, the Oscar-nominated actor said he was “insulted” by government attacks on his decision to move to a town in Belgium just across the French border in an apparent attempt to avoid paying higher French taxes.

Depardieu’s move comes in response to a new 75 percent tax on the wealthy introduced by Hollande’s left-leaning government. The new tax rate, which comes in next year, will tax all income above $1.3 million (€1 million) at the new 75 percent rate. Across the border in Belgium, there is no wealth tax and capital gains on stock sales are also tax-free.

Depardieu’s move to the small Belgian town of Nechin, within walking distance of the French border, has been roundly criticized in the French media. Prime Minister Ayrault called his decision to move “shabby,” “pathetic” and unpatriotic at a time of austerity programs. [THR]

Unpatriotic? No, I think you just failed to find that perfect balance of “not quite enough to force people across the border” for which all taxes strive. In any case, this argument is much more interesting if you imagine them both as the French knights in Monty Python, making faces at each other across the street from different castles.

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Trivia: That butt belongs to a 16-year-old Katherine Heigl

Famous French actor Gerard Depardieu, who won a Golden Globe in 1990 for Green Card and an Oscar nomination the same year for Cyrano De Bergerac, and who these days resembles a morbidly obese proboscis monkey, reportedly dropped trou and peed on the floor of a CityJet plane in front of everyone when the stewardess told him he couldn’t get up to use the bathroom. But hey, peeing on stuff is just what frogs do when they’re agitated. HA! SUCK IT, FRANCE! IT’S ABOUT TIME SOMEONE FINALLY HAD THE COURAGE TO MAKE FUN OF YOU!

French film actor Gerard Depardieu was caught short on a Paris to Dublin flight and chose not to bother going to the toilet before relieving himself, airline CityJet told AFP.
According to a passenger, who was not named, the 62-year-old was visibly inebriated and tried to stand up before take-off, when passengers are asked to wear seatbelts, declaring: “I want to piss, I want to piss.”
When a stewardess asked him to sit and wait 15 minutes until the jet took off and reached cruising altitude, he said he could not wait. “And there and then he stood up and did it on the floor,” she told the French broadcaster.
“We could see he had been drinking. The stewardess was dumbfounded,” she added. “No-one said anything. It all happened with courtesy. Mr Depardieu sat back down and the plane returned to the parking area to be cleaned.” [AFP]

Jokes aside, good for him. I’m from the country, and if I have a choice between peeing in a toilet and peeing not in a toilet, I’ll take the latter every time. Trust me, there’s nothing quite like the feel of fresh air on your piss stream. As men, it’s our birthright to pee wherever and whenever the urge strikes us, hence the helpful spout. So if we ask you to use the bathroom, that’s just us being chivalrous. If you say no, guess what, some sh*t’s getting peed on. So whether you’re a stewardess, an urban business owner, or the owner of a retail establishment, always remember: when a man asks you for a place where he can pee, it’s because he wants to find a place to pee, not because he needs one.

French actor Guillaume Depardieu has died at the age of 37.  Guillaume was the son of French actor Gerard Depardieu, whom you may remember as the father of that 16-year-old girl I really wanted to bone in My Father the Hero (wait, that was Katherine Heigl?! Aw, crap.)

Guillaume Depardieu died of pneumonia contracted days earlier in Paris’ Raymond Poincare hospital. He continued the family theatrical tradition with roles in numerous French films including recent Gallic releases “Versailles” and “De la Guerre,” the November release “Stella” and 1995′s “Les Apprentis,” which earned him a Cesar award for Most Promising Newcomer. [THR]

Pneumonia?  Jesus Christ, what year is it?  This just goes to show you, never take your sick relatives to a hospital where instead of antibiotics they have an old cat that scares away the bad humors.  In related news, I can’t tell if I’m getting sick or if it’s just that to pronounce “Depardieu” I have to stick my tongue out and make my mouth look like I’m puking.

Anyway… uh… our thoughts and prayers are with the family.  Boy, I suck at this.