Kanye West ‘fires’ Johnny Depp’s lawyer Camille Vasquez after law firm asks him to retract hate speech
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Kanye West has cut ties with Johnny Depp's defamation trial lawyer Camille Vasquez after the rapper repeated his anti-Semitic comments over the weekend and refused to retract them. West, 45, sparked the controversy on October 9, when he tweeted that he was going to "go death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE" and made a misleading reference to the military word "defcon". He hasn't changed his stance on the contentious statements he made since then.
Days after being hired by the rapper, Vasquez, the Los Angeles-based lawyer informed her firm, Brown Rudnick, that she would not be working with the troubled rapper, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told the New York Post on Monday, October 24. The source said that West was asked to publicly apologize for his words by Brown Rudnick as they first wanted to keep him on as a client. "After Ye doubled down this weekend, Camille dropped him. The firm still wanted to make it work but on the condition he retract, he wouldn't — so he fired them," a source told New York Post.
READ MORE
Vasquez, a litigation and arbitration expert, rose to global popularity while defending Depp in the volatile case he brought against his ex-wife Amber Heard earlier this year.
Meanwhile, the 'I Am a God' singer had his relationship with CAA, a Hollywood talent agency, dissolved earlier this month due to the backlash from his controversial comments, reported LA Times. In recent weeks, a number of prominent companies have cut ties with the rapper, including Balenciaga and Vogue.
Even in these troubled times, West has consistently stood by his words, most recently declaring in an interview with Piers Morgan that he has no regrets. West responded, "No. Absolutely not," when asked if he regretted making the remarks.
The father of four was certain that he wouldn't be sacked as a result, telling TMZ over the weekend that businesses were merely breaking relations with him to "score points." Ye stated, "We here, baby, we ain't going nowhere. I ain't losing no money. The day I was taken off the Balenciaga site, that was one of the most freeing days."
The founder of Yeezy, who is going through a divorce with Kim Kardashian, will now need to find new divorce lawyers. He had been represented by renowned divorce attorneys Bob Cohen and Bernard Clair of the New York legal firm Cohen Clair Lans Griefer Thorpe & Rottenstreich LLP up until the pattern of his behavior started to become erratic. "The firm is no longer representing Kanye West," a source told PageSix.
Kim Kardashian, Kanye West's ex-wife, broke her silence on Monday, October 24 and said that hate speech is "never OK or excusable." She posted on her Instagram Story, "I stand together with the Jewish community and call on the terrible violence and hateful rhetoric towards them to come to an immediate end." Similar posts were shared on social media by her mother Kris Jenner, as well as her sisters Kendall, Kylie, and Khloé Kardashian.