Attorney Camille Vasquez embraces her client, Johnny Depp, in the courtroom during his defamation case against ex-wife, Amber Heard on May 17, 2022. Photo: Reuters
The relationship rumours about Johnny Depp and his lawyer Camille Vasquez were out of order, the litigator says.Vasquez, who became a celebrity of sorts during the weekslong Fairfax County, Virginia, trial in which her client and his ex-wife Amber Heard sued one another for defamation, says that the rumors she and Depp were anything more than lawyer and client are “disappointing.”
“I guess it comes with the territory of being a woman just doing her job,” Vasquez, who says she’s “very happy” with her boyfriend, told People in an interview. "It’s also an unethical charge being made. It’s sexist.... It’s disappointing, but at the same time it kind of comes with the territory.”
“It’s disappointing that certain outlets kind of ran with it or said that my interactions with Johnny — who is a friend and I’ve known and represented for four-and-a-half years now — that my interactions in any way were inappropriate or unprofessional,” the lawyer, who was made partner at Brown Rudnick law firm after the trial, continued. “That’s disappointing to hear.”
Vasquez noted that her rapport with the former Pirates Of The Caribbean star, 58, is just an example of how she conducts herself on the job.
“I care very deeply about my clients, and we have obviously become close. But when I say we, I mean the entire team, and of course that includes Johnny,” she said. “And, I’m Cuban and Colombian. I’m tactile. What do you want me to say? I hug everyone. And I’m not ashamed about that.”
Noting that “my work is my love,” Vasquez went on to say, “When I love, I love really deeply.”
Vasquez said that Depp “deserved” her efforts to “provide any bit of comfort” during the trial, adding he “was fighting for his life and it broke my heart to see him... listen to the most horrific allegations being made against him.”
Depp was suing the Aquaman actress, 36, for US$50mil over her 2018 Washington Post op-ed, in which she referred to herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse,” which he said cost him his career and reputation. Heard filed a US$100mil countersuit due to a lawyer for her ex dismissing her claims as a hoax.
Depp won the trial, with the jury saying he should get US$10mil in compensatory damages and US$5mil in punitive damages, lowered by the judge to a total of US$10.35mil due to Virginia’s US$350,000 cap on punitive damages. Heard received US$2mil in damages. – New York Daily News/Tribune News Service
