Houston’s Fierce Superlawyer Who Battles Celebrities Like Diddy and Deshaun Watson — Here’s What Fuels His Relentless Fire!
This wave of backlash publicity has allowed critics to resurface some of the more controversial parts of Buzbee’s past—specifically his former relationship with Samuel B. Kent, a now-disgraced federal district judge in Galveston, and how lawyers and critics say that the relationship between judge and attorney wildly benefited the early part of Buzbee’s career. (Both men have previously denied the allegations.)
Buzbee’s edgy style has also come under fire. Critics cite his MO of stuffing as much embarrassing information as possible into demand letters with the intention of scaring the target of the allegations into a settlement to avoid having the case go public. Buzbee has admitted that the criticism has merits while pointing the finger at forces bigger than himself, telling TMZ in the fall that “the system is the system.”
“I really don’t want to be criticizing Tony one way or another, but I don’t agree with his business model, and I don’t agree with the tremendous amount of self-promotion that accompanies his lawsuits,” says Rusty Hardin, another high-profile Houston trial lawyer who has opposed Buzbee in the civil litigation for Watson and the impeachment trial for Paxton. “You make it impossible for the innocent to ever recover, and you make it extremely difficult for people to defend themselves. That’s why they pay him—and that’s not how it’s supposed to be.”
So how did a renowned trial lawyer who has long thrived on confrontation and spectacle, and who is wealthier and more famous than he’s ever been before, find himself as one of the main characters in some of the most significant civil litigation involving celebrities, athletes, and alleged sex crimes?
The simple answer: Because he believes in their cases. The other answer: Because nothing or no one was going to get in the way of a trial lawyer once described as “a flamethrower attached to a bulldozer.”
“You don’t make friends in this business,” he says. “You don’t do it because you want to be Mr. Popular. If you do it to be Mr. Popular, you’re not gonna do it very well.”
If Rick Perry was going to have his criminal charges dropped, Buzbee knew his friend had to have the mug shot of all mug shots. The pair of Texas A&M alums had gotten to know each other when Buzbee cold-called Perry in 2011 to say, “You need some debate help,” after the governor’s “oops” moment during a Republican presidential debate, in which Perry blanked and couldn’t remember the third of three federal agencies he said he’d said eliminate if he were to become president.
So when Perry was indicted on an abuse-of-power charge linked to a veto threat against the Travis County, Texas, district attorney’s office, he turned to Buzbee, his friend, to lead the case. It was more than a little ironic considering Perry had previously villainized personal-injury lawyers such as Buzbee for going after companies and governmental entities. “He tried to put me out of business for fourteen years as governor,” says Buzbee, cackling at the memory.
But all that mattered now was getting that first public image right to set the stage for the eventual dismissal of Perry’s charges. “I knew very well that the mug shot was super important, so we made sure the suit was right, the hair was right, the makeup was right, the tie was right—and the mug shot was fucking beautiful,” Buzbee says of Perry, who was his best man when the lawyer remarried.
Buzbee, who still has a framed photo of Perry’s mug shot on display in the conference room of his office, says it one more time to savor the flavor: “It was a beautiful mug shot. I mean, he’s a good-looking man. And I think Trump took some pointers from that. I really do.”
On the phone from his local grocery, where he’s shopping for tortillas, Perry says he remains grateful to Buzbee for what he did to get the indictment dropped nearly a decade ago: “I’m really glad that I had him, just as I’m sure that the people who have been abused by Diddy are very thankful that they have him.”
Also among Buzbee’s admirers is Milena Loree, the widow of David Loree, a fifty-six-year-old pipe fitter who was killed on the job in 2021 when a massive AC unit tipped off a crane from ten feet above and crushed him. TNT Crane & Rigging, one of the nation’s largest crane companies, initially offered about $7 million to settle the case. But Buzbee took the civil suit to trial, and the jury found the crane company responsible, awarding a massive verdict of $640 million in damages. “My protector was taken away, and look how God put Tony Buzbee in my path to take care of me,” Milena, sixty-one, tells me. “And he sure has.”
When his career first started to take off, around the time of the BP lawsuits, Buzbee says that sexual-assault cases weren’t a top priority. “I always said, ‘Nah,’ not because I didn’t care but because those just are hard cases,” he says. “As far as bang for your buck, as far as keeping a business going, they bog you down. They take a long time, and there’s not a lot of money involved.”
That changed with Watson, who was the starter for the Houston Texans and one of the NFL’s top young quarterbacks in 2021 when women began to come forward. Shortly after Buzbee first met with massage therapist Ashley Solis and heard her allegation that Watson had sexually assaulted her, he sent a letter to Watson’s team, Buzbee says. Watson’s management was dismissive of him and the letter, he says, and “that kind of pissed me off.” Eventually, two dozen female massage therapists came forward to accuse Watson of inappropriate behavior. Watson has denied the allegations and maintains his innocence.
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