Johnny Depp is suing his ex-wife Amber Heard for defaming him in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed. Heard alleges the actor was severely abusive to her – an allegation Depp claims destroyed his career. The Depp legal team's ace-in-the-hole, Camille Vasquez, has emerged as a star with a week remaining in the highly-publicized case.

#camillevasquez has received over 980 million TikTok impressions. Almost 30 million people viewed a video of her lightning-fast objections to Heard's lead attorney Elaine Bredehoft. The two-minute TikTok video of Vasquez's courtroom interruptions with the comment "where did this woman get her degree?" coincided with a 1,820 percent increase in Google searches for Southwestern Law School, Vasquez's alma mater, according to research by the website Eruderer. (Searches for USC, Vasquez's undergrad college, are up 127 percent .) Another TikTok compares Vasquez to Meghan Markle's Suits character, Rachel Zane, a legal eagle.

Since Hillary Clinton accepted the Democratic nomination for president, the striking white suit Vasquez wore for portions of the Heard testimony has perhaps generated the most discussion. Shortly after Disney+ released the trailer for the Marvel television series She-Hulk on Wednesday, featuring a female attorney who shares Bruce Banner's cynical disposition, Vasquez was already creating memes. Depp followers ambush Vasquez for hugs and selfies outside of the courthouse in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Why are so many people gushing over the hitherto unknown Vasquez, who dealt primarily with internal business concerns until joining the celebrity trial of the decade?

Vasquez was born to Cuban and Colombian parents in San Francisco. She is an associate at Brown-Rudnick, where she was named one of the "ones to watch" by Best Lawyer magazine last year. She had previously represented Depp in litigation against his former attorneys, Jake Bloom and Joel Mandel.

After maintaining a relatively quiet profile for most of the trial's gavel-to-gavel coverage, 37-year-old Vasquez moved into the spotlight to handle Amber Heard's witness testimony for lead attorney Ben Chew. A young lady similar to Heard, Vasquez appeared to be a more suitable interrogator than Chew, a middle-aged guy.

Vasquez introduced herself to the cameras by wearing down Bredehoft as she questioned her client, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. Vasquez raised several successful objections, preventing Bredehoft from establishing favorable facts for her client. On occasion, Vasquez interjected before Bredehoft had completed her question. After a protracted protest, Judge Penney Azcarate instructed Bredehoft to reword her inquiry; Bredehoft huffed, "I'm trying, I'm trying."

Vasquez's performance was intended to lessen the impact of Heard's testimony while diverting attention from some of the damaging physical evidence against Depp, such as threatening text messages and severe charges of abuse and assault brought under oath by Heard.

During her cross-examination, Vasquez assailed her credibility with Heard. Vasquez exhibited photo after photo of an undamaged Heard taken in the wake of the actor's abuse allegations and emphasized that Heard had broken her vow to donate her divorce money to charity.

The responses to her in the court of public opinion resemble Johnnie Cochran's star appearance during the OJ Simpson trial in the mid-1990s. One TikTok commenter lauded Vasquez as the "Hermione of Law." "I adore how she recognizes when Amber is playing with words and stops her," said another.

Vasquez's contacts with Depp had sparked online rumors of a romantic relationship between the two - a notion that made Vasquez giggle when a paparazzo mentioned it outside the courthouse. (Vasquez is reportedly linked with a British real estate agent.) According to body language specialists, the touches and hugs shared by Depp and Vasquez are most likely designed to make Depp appear softer.

Her starring role is more proof of the bizarre transformation of this slander lawsuit into a made-for-television movie. Having a powerful attorney in court; is quite another to having one with her fan base.