One of Johnny Depp’s lawyers from his libel lawsuit in the United Kingdom, Joelle Rich, is Johnny Depp’s girlfriend, a source has confirmed to PEOPLE.
“They are dating but it’s not serious,” the insider said of their relationship.
Rich is a London attorney who served as a member of Johnny Depp, age 59,’s legal team during his libel action against The Sun, which he ultimately lost in November 2020. The case was brought against The Sun. He sued the newspaper for branding him a “wife-beater,” but the court validated the outlet’s accusations as being “basically accurate,” and his ex-wife Amber Heard testified to back up the charges. Heard’s testimony was used to support the claims. In March of 2021, his effort to get the judgement reversed was deemed unsuccessful.
In the defamation lawsuit that Depp was fighting this year in Fairfax County, Virginia, against Heard, who is 36 years old, Depp’s new love interest was not one of his attorneys. He prevailed in that lawsuit; a jury decided that Heard had slandered him in her opinion piece for the Washington Post in 2018 on domestic abuse, even though she did not identify him by name. More than $10 million in damages were granted to Depp, while Heard was given $2 million for winning one of her three defamation countersuit claims and receiving an award for that claim. (Both of them are contesting the judgments in court.)
Even though Rich was not a part of Depp’s legal team this time around, she did attend in court on many occasions to express her support. On May 3, she was seen in a photo with Johnny Depp in front of the courthouse, and on May 16, she was seen giving Depp’s attorney Camille Vasquez a bear hug inside the courtroom.
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The revelation of the connection was first reported by Us Weekly.
Rich has “expertise in libel, privacy, and copyright conflicts,” according to her profile, and she “helps people and families in the public spotlight safeguard their privacy and reputations.” She says that she “works to protect the reputations of [clients] against false and defamatory charges in print, online, and throughout social media.” The previous year also saw her law business representing Meghan Markle in a dispute brought against the proprietors of the Mail on Sunday.
Since the widely publicized Virginia defamation lawsuit that began earlier this year, there has been much conjecture about Johnny Depp’s sexual life. People on social media began spreading the claim that his lawyer, Vasquez, was dating the movie star client. She categorically disputed the allegation and labeled it “sexist” in an interview with PEOPLE.
Vasquez said, “I assume being a woman simply doing her job comes with the territory,” in reference to the situation. “It is disheartening that some media outlets have kind of run with it or said that my interactions with Johnny, who is a friend and whom I have known and represented for four and a half years now, were in any way inappropriate or unprofessional. This is because my interactions with Johnny are neither inappropriate nor unprofessional. Hearing that is quite disheartening.”
“I have developed a really strong connection with everyone of my customers because I care so much about them. When I say “we,” though, I am referring to the whole of the squad, and yes, that does include Johnny “added Vasquez. “Furthermore, I am of Cuban and Colombian ancestry. I’m tactile. What exactly do you want me to respond with? I give hugs to everyone. And I am not embarrassed by that fact.”
Then, in the month of July, when Depp was caught in Italy assisting an unidentified lady with her suitcase as they departed a car and he proceeded to music rehearsals, many believed that it may be the beginning of a possible new romance between the two of them. However, a source close to Depp emphasized to PEOPLE that she was Depp’s French instructor for his next feature Jeanne du Barry and that there was “no emotional connection whatsoever; totally professional” relationship between the two of them.