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‘They found money to hire a beauty queen’: NBC staff not happy as Johnny Depp’s ex-lawyer Camille Vasquez joins amid layoffs

'Camille wouldn't have been booked as a guest before working for Johnny Depp,' said a source

ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA: Attorney Camille Vasquez, who shot to fame after representing Johnny Depp in his defamation case against Amber Heard, is enduring the wrath of her new coworkers at NBC. In January, NBC hired Vasquez as an on-air legal analyst, about the same time that NBCUniversal started firing journalists from almost every department, prompting this rage.

Vasquez is not well-liked by her new coworkers, according to RadarOnline, who wonder how the network was able to afford to pay the celebrity attorney. "Poor Camille arrived at precisely the wrong time," an unnamed source remarked. "The week she arrived, double digits of workers were fired — yet NBC found the money to hire a 38-year-old beauty queen." The unidentified insider went on to say that Vasquez would not have been hired if she had not represented Depp in the broadcasted trial. The source stated, "Camille wouldn't have been booked as a guest before working for Johnny Depp, and now she's on the staff, and folks around the office are mad."

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'Poor Camille arrived at precisely the wrong time'

Vasquez was hired by NBC only seven months after successfully defending Depp in a defamation lawsuit brought by his ex-wife. It was reported by the Hollywood Reporter that when the Depp and Heard trial concluded at the end of June, at least three national news divisions approached Vasquez about hiring her as an analyst or contributor.

On January 9, Vasquez appeared for the first time on NBC's Today Show to discuss the most recent murders of college students in Idaho. Hoda Kotb, the host, introduced Vasquez as "NBC News' legal analyst" before asking her about how she thinks social media and internet sleuths may affect the case – something she is quite familiar with given the attention the Depp and Heard case garnered.

The death of four young women who were murdered in Moscow, Idaho, on November 13, 2022, "has become something that has really captivated the country," Vasquez remarked. "And so people want to talk about the evidence, they want to talk about the human impact."

Vasquez said, "I think it can be helpful to investigators, they pleaded to the public and asked for information about the [murder suspect Brian Kohberger's] white [car], but it could also be harmful, when you start naming someone."

Layoffs were in the 'double digits'

Then, NBC announced in a tweet that Camille Vasquez had been hired as a legal analyst, stating, "New: Camille Vasquez joins @NBCNews as a legal analyst." She maintained her employment at the law firm Brown Rudnick, where she is co-chair of the group in charge of brand and reputation management.

This situation worsened on January 12 when NBCUniversal executives chose to lay off employees at NBC News and MSNBC. Out of a staff of roughly 3,500 employees, sources said that layoffs were in the "double digits," while CNN reported that about 75 individuals had been let go, as reported by the DailyMail. No on-air talent was impacted, according to Deadline, but the staff layoffs were spread departments.