The chairman of the 2028 Summer season Olympics is feeling the warmth, and it’s not from the large torch that simply arrived in Los Angeles from Paris.
It’s been two weeks because the publication of a damning tabloid report about Casey Wasserman, grandson of the vaunted Hollywood dealmaker Lew Wasserman, during which the expertise company proprietor was accused of getting “serial” affairs with junior workers over a few years. These reported indiscretions – on which Wasserman didn’t remark — set stars, political figures and trade insiders on edge because the Paris video games ended final weekend and L.A. took the baton. It has additionally introduced consideration to his firm, which represents music powerhouses like Kendrick Lamar and Chappell Roan and athletes together with Megan Rapinoe.
First and most consequential for Wasserman is the lack of Billie Eilish, a famous person consumer who jumped ship on Tuesday. The “Birds of a Feather” singer and her brother Finneas will now be represented by competitor WME.
When the U.Ok.-based Day by day Mail printed its Aug. 1 report calling Wasserman a “serial cheater” — naming former and present workers he’s accused of getting sexual relationships with — they referred to him because the “mastermind” behind the careers of Eilish and bands like Coldplay. Eilish and her group have been “horrified” at their inclusion within the story, three top-level sources informed Selection.
Eilish has minimal private information of Wasserman himself, two insiders mentioned. She had lengthy been represented by Tom Windish, an agent who started working with Eilish at Paradigm Expertise Company (Wasserman acquired and ingested the Paradigm music group in 2021). The star and her advisors had no want to be related to the company after the report, the sources added.
“Whereas grateful to their former reside reserving brokers at Wasserman, Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell have opted to have movie, TV and music dealt with by the identical company, WME, transferring ahead,” a spokesperson for Eilish informed Selection. Wasserman had no touch upon the matter.
Eilish and group wished to bail from the Wasserman consumer roster instantly following the Day by day Mail report, the three sources mentioned, however her involvement within the closing ceremony for the Paris Olympics difficult issues. Not solely was Wasserman the identify on the door on the agency representing her, Eilish had been recruited for a star-studded efficiency alongside the Pink Sizzling Chili Peppers and Snoop Dogg for the splashy NBC closing broadcast. In what one insider referred to as a “handover section,” cameras lower from Paris to the prerecorded musical acts on the shores of Lengthy Seaside, Calif. Two days after Eilish’s efficiency aired, WME scooped up the remainder of her enterprise.
A number of sources contained in the LA28 group, a nonprofit, have been vexed by the optics of Day by day Mail report, sources mentioned. The story particularly named Patricia Feau, a former assistant to NBCUniversal government Ron Meyer who later ran Wasserman’s workplace, as one of many workers who had an affair with the latter. Feau denied the affair with Wasserman to the Day by day Mail. She spent nearly eight years in Wasserman’s make use of as his assistant, earlier than being named Vice President of Host Metropolis Relations for LA28 in 2019, in response to her LinkedIn web page. Tax paperwork revealed, per the Day by day Mail, that Feau earns $350,000 per 12 months.
Feau, a local of Inglewood, Calif., acted as a volunteer throughout L.A.’s Olympic bidding course of, a supply near Wasserman mentioned. After town gained the bid, she and two different Wasserman workers have been employed as full-time LA28 staffers. Compensation for all three was reviewed by an unbiased marketing consultant and authorised by the LA28 Board of Administrators, the insider famous.
A spokesperson for LA28 had no touch upon the matter however did verify that the group wouldn’t be conducting an inside investigation over the Day by day Mail report.
For all his a long time among the many L.A.-based jet set, Wasserman has saved a rigorously curated public profile. A booster for the Democratic occasion identical to his grandfather, Wasserman was extra more likely to be snapped on David Geffen’s yacht The Rising Solar than on any pink carpet. Wasserman lately parted methods together with his communications advisor of virtually 20 years, Melissa Zukerman, who resigned in Could.
He’s been particularly seen this 12 months. His splashy look on the Met Gala in Could, which price about round $750,000 for a desk in response to one supply who lower an analogous examine, secured a desk for Wasserman and girlfriend Jenny Chandler to rub shoulders with fashions, film stars and Anna Wintour. Wasserman’s current 50th birthday, a Gatsby-level bash at Santa Monica’s Barker Hangar, was broadly coated for its indulgences – together with a re-creation of the landmark Beverly Hills deli Nate ‘n Al’s, although this pop-up was named for Wasserman and his grandfather (“Lew ‘n Casey”). Wasserman consumer Think about Dragons carried out. Bob Iger, Invoice Clinton and Nancy Pelosi all confirmed as much as have fun.
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings