Featured Image Credit: Michael Mogill/TikTok/Game Changers Summit
Topics: Celebrity, Johnny Depp
Jess Hardiman
Topics: Celebrity, Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp’s lawyer has revealed how she didn’t originally think the long-running defamation lawsuit against Amber Heard was a good idea.
Earlier this year, actor Johnny Depp won his highly-publicised defamation case against ex-wife Amber Heard, with the jury finding that his former partner did defame him in her 2018 Washington Post op-ed about ‘sexual violence’.
While the article didn't mention Depp by name, his lawyers claimed it falsely implies he physically and sexually abused the Aquaman actor while they were together.
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His lawyer Camille Vasquez has now said she didn't actually feel the lawsuit was a good idea, initially, recalling how she eventually wanted to take it on as the matter was of such huge personal importance to Depp.
Speaking earlier this month at the Game Changers Summit, Vasquez was asked how she was introduced to the case.
She explained: “Truth be told, I didn’t think that filing this lawsuit was a good idea. But it was an incredibly personal lawsuit for him, and hopefully the last lawsuit he has to engage in.
"After it was filed, he approached me, along with my partner Ben Chew, and asked if I would join the team. And I was one of the few women on the team, and I really think that this case called for a woman’s perspective - in the strategy and then obviously in the examinations of certain witnesses."
Vasquez added: "It was really my honour to be able to represent him in this matter because it was so personal to him."
The trial went on for six weeks after beginning on 11 April this year, and saw multiple witnesses take to the stand to testify, including the likes of Depp's ex-partner and British supermodel Kate Moss, who testified on his alleged violence.
Psychologists who commented on Heard's mental state also testified, as well as Depp's bodyguard, who testified on the actor's drug use.
Depp and Heard also testified themselves during the highly publicised and televised trial, with Heard saying of their divorce in 2016: "I knew if I didn't I'd likely not literally survive. I was so scared that it was going to end really badly for me and I really didn't want to leave him, I loved him so much.
"I would have done anything but I couldn't do that one thing, I couldn't stay."
Depp was eventually awarded $15 million in damages while Heard, despite losing her case, has been awarded $2 million by the jury.