Kanye West Reportedly Hires Johnny Depp’s Preferred Law Firm

Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, has reportedly retained Camille Vasquez, along with others at the Brown Rudnick firm. Vasquez may be a familiar face and name; she was the breakout star in the macabre courtroom drama that was Johnny Depp’s defamation case against his ex-wife, Amber Heard. TMZ reports that Vasquez is one of a group of lawyers at the firm hired to handle West’s “business interests,” which are unlikely to be televised anytime soon. Vanity Fair has reached out to Vasquez for confirmation. 

West has found himself in a number of potentially legally significant quagmires, business or otherwise, of late. Balenciaga announced it had severed ties with the rapper, a move that came after he debuted “White Lives Matter” shirts on the runway at Paris Fashion Week and followed that with sustained antisemitic vitriol in various spaces online and off. Adidas said their relationship was “under review” weeks ago, but the current official status is unclear. JPMorgan Chase dropped him as a client, though it reportedly predated the antisemitic statements and the shirts.

Also, after West said last week on the podcast Drink Champs that George Floyd’s death was due to a fentanyl overdose, and not former police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nine and a half minutes, as the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled, Floyd’s family announced their intention to sue. Per NPR, Roxie Washington, the mother of Floyd’s daughter, Gianna, plans to file, and her lawyers announced that they’ll be suing for $250 million in damages for “harassment, misappropriation, defamation, and infliction of emotional distress.”

West is also finalizing his divorce with Kim Kardashian, and has cycled through several lawyers for that. If they can’t come to an agreement on it, it’ll go to trial in December, per TMZ.