Okay, now on to the latest agency scandal…

Today appeared to be almost normal for Casey Wasserman, which might seem odd given all the screaming news headlines. According to those in his orbit, the eponymous sports and talent agency owner and L.A. Olympics chairman was business as usual in his Westwood office, doing calls and Zooms. Tonight Wasserman’s got an LA28 event and a party he’s hosting for NBA All-Star Weekend. Tomorrow it’s the NBA Tech Summit, where he’s speaking alongside top media execs and Barack Obama. He was removed from a Telemundo event for ad buyers, and an upcoming fundraiser for the Wallis in his honor may be postponed, but otherwise, you’d hardly know that Wasserman and his agency are facing a client and employee exodus reminiscent of a late-2010s #MeToo scandal.

No agents have bailed yet—a key fact here—but Chappell Roan and a couple minor acts are out. The band Phish asked today to be taken off the client roster, though they have not officially left, and their manager, Coran Capshaw, who also represents Dave Matthews Band, is said to be getting “squirmy” about having Wasserman rep them for touring. Several members of the L.A. City Council want Wasserman to step down from LA28, despite his board backing him. There’s a ton of misinformation and hysteria out there, but the chances of Casey changing his relationship with the influential and highly profitable music agency he bought five years ago are getting stronger every day. Why, exactly? It’s all courtesy of the revelation that Wasserman exchanged some cringey sex-talk emails with Ghislaine Maxwell back in 2003, right after he and his then-wife rode on the Jeffrey Epstein plane for that well-documented humanitarian trip. That’s it. Nothing illegal or even borderline actionable. No evidence Wasserman had any contact with the notorious sex traffickers since then, though in the world of artist representation and both city and Olympics politics, optics can matter just as much—especially since Wasserman put his name (and that of his legendary agency/studio head grandfather, Lew Wasserman) on his company and in giant letters on its Westwood headquarters. And the optics here are bad. Such was the dilemma for the LA28 board, a group that includes longtime Wasserman friends like fellow Democratic donors Jeffrey Katzenberg and Mellody Hobson, as well as his own deal lawyer, Alison Ressler, and L.A. business figures that have supported the local Olympics movement since Casey self-funded the bid more than a decade ago. Wasserman may have a reputation as being born on third base, but he wasn’t placed in this role; the L.A. Olympics, projected to bring about $15 billion to Southern California at a time it really needs it, would not be happening without his efforts. So no, it’s not a shock that the executive committee of the LA28 board backed Wasserman, writing in a statement that his contacts with Epstein and Maxwell “did not go beyond what has already been publicly documented” and he “should continue to lead LA28 and deliver a safe and successful Games.” Here’s what wasn’t in the statement: The board vote was unanimous, according to two sources familiar with its deliberation. No dissenters, not even Kevin McCarthy, the former Republican congressman who has been floated as a Trump-friendly replacement for Wasserman. (I wonder how all those L.A. officials calling for Wasserman’s exit would like dealing with McCarthy instead? Or how about Don Jr.? After all, LA28 is still seeking billions in security and transportation funds from the feds… You think Trump, who seems to like Wasserman, won’t assert more control if there’s a leadership vacuum?) Wasserman, Katzenberg, and LA28 all declined to comment. Still, lots of surprise around town at the board’s decision, and several of those L.A. council members, no doubt realizing there’s little downside politically in coming out against Wasserman, have expressed disappointment. But is the decision really shocking? Wasserman’s alleged crime is that he flirted with a woman via email more than two decades ago. Yes, he was married at the time, and the exchanges were nauseating given that years later the woman would become Ghislaine Maxwell. But back then she was not that. If I asked you to show me every email you sent in your 20s, you probably wouldn’t be proud of them all, either. Plus, not that it matters a ton, but let’s take a brief look at other top figures in the representation business. CAA’s Bryan Lourd and Kevin Huvane were accused in a lawsuit of sending actress Julia Ormond into meetings with now-notorious rapist Harvey Weinstein and then encouraging her not to report his assault. (They’ve denied the claims.) WME co-founder Ari Emanuel regularly sits ringside with UFC leader Dana White, who was caught on video hitting his wife. In this Epstein email dump, producer and New York Giants owner Steve Tisch exchanged many degrading emails about women—“adult women,” he felt compelled to clarify in a statement. Maxwell emailed Epstein in 2010 saying she couldn’t make a meeting because “I leave at that time w/Ron Meyer for New Orleans.” Meyer was then the president and C.O.O. of Universal. Given his perch, and the public platform afforded by the Olympics, should Wasserman have been more forthcoming about his entanglement with Maxwell before the latest email dump? For sure, though Casey has told friends he didn’t even remember the exchanges. And it didn’t help that this is the second recent bad-behavior scandal for Wasserman, coming nearly two years after a Daily Mail exposé of the “serial cheater,” including details about consensual relationships with subordinates at his company. Not a bastion of good judgment. (It also doesn’t help that Casey’s ex happens to be the daughter of Ken Ziffren, the veteran lawyer and one of the most respected figures in Hollywood.) But three lead lawyers at the O’Melveny firm looked into the question we all had when we first saw the emails—What other stuff is out there?—and they put the firm’s name on a statement saying nothing came up. We know that’s not dispositive—remember when Time Warner investigated then-Warner Bros. chairman Kevin Tsujihara and found nothing… right before it was revealed that he had pushed studio jobs for an actress with whom he'd had an affair? One thing we learned from #MeToo was that internal investigations are often woefully (or even purposely) inadequate. But until any other bad Wasserman behavior is unearthed, it’s all we have to go on. Still, like I said, the talent business is often governed by optics and reputation, which is why this scandal is a much bigger deal for Wasserman, the agency. Artists are free to be represented by whomever they choose, and if it feels gross to be repped by a company whose leader would ask for massages from Jeffrey Epstein’s pimp, it’s perfectly reasonable to go elsewhere. Chappell Roan, Orville Peck, the soccer player Abby Wambach, several others who are teetering… But it’s worth asking why these flames of scandal have been fanned. Wasserman, which is said to generate more than $1 billion in revenue each year, has become a pretty dominant player in the cutthroat touring business—a business that is booming at a time when much of entertainment is struggling. At least two Wasserman insiders are convinced that rival agency bosses are paying for bot armies to leave comments on the social media accounts of music clients telling them to drop the firm. And of course, the Olympics are a lightning rod of controversy due to their cost and the international politics at play.

Given the scandal, it makes sense that Wasserman agents like Marty Diamond (Coldplay) are exploring exits. Diamond and others want to keep the music group together, so perhaps Casey would sell off the unit, though a source close to Wasserman told me there are currently no talks about divesting the profitable division. So, what might the next few weeks look like? I went back and forth a bit today with Dave Brooks, our new music correspondent, who happens to be a touring expert:

Dave: Casey seems to agree that something needs to be done, but he doesn’t seem willing to sell. One solution would be that he could step away from the company to focus on the Olympics and transfer managing control to someone else selected by his board. Matt: But he would retain ownership of the agency. Dave: Which might be unacceptable to the agents who say their clients don’t want to earn money for the owner. He could also sell the company or spin out the music unit to Providence Equity Partners, which owns more than 50 percent of the company. (Wasserman maintains control.) But Casey likely would take a big financial haircut in such a distressed sale—though if he waits too long and major clients defect, that’s a bigger problem. Matt: But it’s not so easy for these agents to just leave. Dave: No. Nearly all of the agents are locked in long-term deals, typically three to five years, and it would be hard to claim that offensive emails from two decades ago are cause to void those contracts. Some agents owe Wasserman money that has been fronted, too. But rivals are pouncing. I’m hearing that Kirk Sommer at WME has been trying to woo back clients that left when Brent Smith defected to Wasserman. UTA has been going after Wasserman’s electronic artists like Diplo and rap clients like Run the Jewels, who are considered politically progressive. Matt: I think the competitive climate is one reason this scandal has become so big. Wasserman Music has stolen a handful of influential agents from WME, and there’s a bit of resentment in the representation world that Casey bought his way into it, rather than ascending from the bottom. As you know, Wasserman Music has only existed since 2021, when Casey acquired it from Sam Gores’s Paradigm agency. That deal was negotiated during the lowest point of Covid, when the live music business had been crippled. Terms weren’t revealed at the time, but a few outlets pegged the value of the group at between $150 million and $200 million. Now, five years later, with touring carrying the rest of the music business, how much is that same Wasserman Music group worth? Probably a lot more. Dave: True. But the Paradigm group liked Casey because he has been a hands-off owner. Most of the big promoters respected Wasserman both for his success in the sports world and his work on the L.A. Olympics. Matt: And the sports side of the agency is where Casey seems to see his future. My understanding is that about 50 percent of the EBITDA of the company comes from its representation business (the rest is brand work), and on the representation side, music is only about 20 percent. So… big, but if it left entirely, it wouldn’t kill the company. Dave: I’d give him ’til the end of the month to get this resolved.

One area of Wasserman’s business that doesn’t seem to be impacted—at least not yet—is Brillstein, the prolific talent management company that Wasserman acquired in 2023. It handles major stars like Emma Stone, Brad Pitt, and, since December, Sydney Sweeney, yet none has spoken out about Wasserman, much less defected to a rival. I think that’s partly because Brillstein is a bit more siloed off from the rest of the company, and Casey’s name isn’t in their email addresses or signature lines. Also, Brillstein’s roots are in comedy—today it reps Adam Sandler, Nate Bargatze, Bill Maher, Martin Short, David Spade, and Nikki Glaser—and its clients and managers may be less sensitive to this kind of offensive behavior than music stars, who are often obsessed with comments on social media. Brillstein stood by Pitt when he was accused of abusing Angelina Jolie (he’s denied it), and the managers I spoke to this week expressed embarrassment over the scandal but no pressure from clients to distance themselves. Again, at least not yet. (Jon Liebman, its C.E.O., declined to comment.)

Will Casey step down and rebrand? That may be a path of least resistance. But would it be enough? And of course, who knows what further Epstein dumps might reveal?

See you Tuesday, Matt

Got a question, comment, complaint, or a secret Valentine? Email me at Matt@puck.news or call/text me at 310-804-3198.

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