Johnny Depp’s lawyer, Camille Vasquez, has landed a lucrative new gig as a legal expert for NBC News.
The attorney, who represented Depp in his 2022 defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard, made her debut on Monday’s episode of the Today show.
Vasquez appeared on the morning show to discuss the implications of social media commentary around the homicide of four college students in Moscow, Idaho.
NBC announced her new role in a tweet and shared a video of her first appearance.
“NEW: Camille Vasquez joins @NBCNews as a legal analyst,” it captioned the tweet.
While many celebrated her new role, there were a number of outspoken critics of the appointment.
“She shamed and humiliated a survivor and victim of abuse on a global scale and the matrix is paying her money and attention? Predicted that during the trial- so obvious this is how Hollywood distributes its darkness disguised as light,” wrote one disgusted viewer on Twitter.
Another added: “Let’s be real. Camille Vasquez used victim blaming instead of evidence and law-based arguments. She’s better suited for Mean Girls 3 than an NBC legal analyst.”
And a third wrote: “Maybe in her new job on NBC, Camille Vasquez will explain why she decided to draw the line that an SA [sexual assault] victim can only be believed if she take pictures of her g*nitals after being SA, to show in court.”
Vasquez became globally known from April 2022 when the Depp defamation trial against Heard began. Depp had filed a $50 million defamation lawsuit against Heard in response to a 2018 op-ed she had written for The Washington Post. In the piece she wrote she was a domestic abuse survivor, but she didn’t name her abuser.
The trial lasted until June 1 and the jury found Heard had defamed Depp and awarded him more than $10 million.
Heard had countersued Depp for $100 million, alleging that he had defamed her through comments made by his attorney Adam Waldman. Depp was ordered to pay $2 million to Heard at the end of the trial.
The actress had planned to appeal the decision, but revealed in December 2022 that she had decided to not to go ahead with it.
Vasquez faced criticism for comments she made after the trial in a Discovery+ documentary called, Johnny vs Amber: The U.S. Trial.
In the two-part documentary, she claimed Depp couldn’t have abused Heard when he was “too drunk and high” to stand up.
“That’s one part of the case I’ve never understood,” Vasquez said, while discussing Heard’s testimony regarding Depp’s behavior. “He’s either drunk and high and incapable of even standing up, or he’s drunk and high and able to attack her, chase her, land blows? It just doesn’t make sense.”
After the trial, Vasquez was promoted within her law firm, Brown Rudnick, and she became a partner. Looking ahead to her further career aspirations, Vasquez told Gayle King on CBS Mornings in September 2022: “I don’t have a long-term goal, except I want to continue my practice. I’m a lawyer. When I look at myself in the mirror, I see an advocate. I was born to do this. I really feel that way. I do.”
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