The Grammy-winning artist Chappell Roan announced on Monday that she had left the talent agency led and founded by Casey Wasserman, who exchanged flirtatious emails with Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime companion, as the repercussions of the Epstein files seep into the realms of sports and culture.
“As of today, I am no longer represented by Wasserman,” Ms. Roan, known for hits like “Pink Pony Club” and “Good luck, Babe!,” wrote on Instagram. “I hold my teams to the highest standards and have a duty to protect them as well. No artist, agent or employee should ever be expected to defend or overlook actions that conflict so deeply with our own moral values.”
In her statement, Ms. Roan did not directly name Ms. Maxwell or Mr. Epstein, the convicted sex offender who killed himself in 2019 while in jail awaiting a criminal trial on sex-trafficking charges.
“This decision reflects my belief that meaningful change in our industry requires accountability and leadership that earns trust,” Ms. Roan wrote.
Mr. Wasserman, who is also the chairman of the Los Angeles Organizing Committee for the 2028 Olympic Games, exchanged emails with Ms. Maxwell in 2003, according to the Justice Department documents on Mr. Epstein released last month.
The communications occurred while Mr. Wasserman was married with a young family, and before Ms. Maxwell was convicted in 2021 on federal charges that she conspired with Mr. Epstein to sexually abuse teenage girls.
In the emails, Ms. Maxwell offered to give Mr. Wasserman a massage that would “drive a man wild.” In another exchange, Mr. Wasserman told her: “I think of you all the time. So, what do I have to do to see you in a tight leather outfit?”
In a statement this month, after the emails became public, Mr. Wasserman said: “I deeply regret my correspondence with Ghislaine Maxwell which took place over two decades ago, long before her horrific crimes came to light.”
Since the revelations, Mr. Wasserman has been facing mounting pressure to remove himself from his talent agency and to step down from the Olympic organizing committee.
While Ms. Roan is the most high profile artist to cut ties with Mr. Wasserman’s agency — she has more than 35 million monthly listeners on Spotify — she is not the only artist speaking out.
“We are demanding for Wasserman to remove himself and his name from the agency,” Lili Trifilio, the guitarist and vocalist of Beach Bunny, another Wasserman client, wrote on the band’s Instagram page this week.
“‘Deep regrets’ are not enough,” Ms. Trifilio wrote, referring to a line from Mr. Wasserman’s statement, in which he denied having a relationship with Mr. Epstein but acknowledged that he had taken a trip on his plane in 2002. “I am terribly sorry for having any association with either of them,” he said.
Ms. Trifilio called Mr. Wasserman’s exchanges with Ms. Maxwell “abhorrent and disturbing on every level.”
A North Carolina indie-rock band, Wednesday, also announced this week that it would leave Wasserman. “Continuing to be represented by a company led by and named after Casey Wasserman goes against our values and cannot continue,” the band wrote on Instagram. “For the sake of his staff we hope that he steps down from the company and it is rebranded.”
The Wasserman agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
In an open letter to the agency, Bethany Cosentino, the frontwoman of the band Best Coast, which has been represented by the Wasserman agency since 2021, wrote that she had asked the agency to remove her name and her band’s name from its website, and called for Mr. Wasserman to step down.
“As an artist represented by Wasserman, I did not consent to having my name or career tied to someone with this kind of association to exploitation,” Ms. Cosentino wrote.
Other prominent musicians represented by Wasserman include Kendrick Lamar, Coldplay, Joni Mitchell, Lorde and Tyler, The Creator.
Claire Moses is a Times reporter in London, focused on coverage of breaking and trending news.
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