It took merely a week for Casey Wasserman – rich, powerful and connected – to fall from his perch at the top of the talent agency that he founded and led after the exposure of some sex-soaked emails with convicted trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.
Not pedophilia. Not rape. Just emails about philandering between two private individuals, from 20 years ago.
We’re going to unpack that, but first, the moving pieces on this fast-shifting narrative. Multiple sources on this story confirm that Wasserman intended to ride out the scandal after issuing an apology for his association with Maxwell and taking Jeffrey Epstein’s plane, once.
He got the support of his hand-picked LA28 Olympic board. And he went so far as to step out in public on Friday at the NBA All-Star weekend’s tech conference, appearing on a panel with Instagram chief Adam Mosseri.
But behind the scenes, Providence Equity Partners, the private equity firm that owns more than 60 percent of the sports and music agency, wasn’t having it. As clients like Chappell Roan and Abby Wambach fled the agency and his music department, led by the respected music agent Marty Diamond, who represents Coldplay, Ed Sheeran and other major acts, threatened to leave, the pressure on both Wasserman and Providence became intense. And by Friday, ultimately unbearable.
Providence told Wasserman he needed to sell his 40ish percent of the agency, two insiders told me. They will then sell the agency, probably broken into pieces of sports, music and movie/television talent. President Mike Watts takes over immediately.
Casey Wasserman declined to comment for this story. An executive at Providence Equity said the decision to sell was Wasserman’s and disputed that Providence was looking to sell or that the PE firm would break the agency into parts.
The background here is not only that Wasserman previously embarrassed his financial partner with the revelation a year ago that he had two scandalous affairs during his marriage, including with a former executive assistant who was placed in a high-paying job at LA28, and a flight attendant on his private plane who is now his partner.
But in addition, WaxWord has learned that in the wake of that revelation, Providence had been shopping its stake and spoke to at least two institutional investors about their interest. This process is not unusual as private equity usually invests for 5 to 7 years before looking to sell.
But according to my sources, it’s still early for Providence to sell and Wasserman was seeking a CAA-like 14-15x valuation on the company which I am told has been touted as producing $200 million in profit per year. (I’m unable to confirm the accuracy of this as Wasserman is privately held.) Wasserman’s annual revenue is estimated at about $700 million.
Now Wasserman is being forced into a fire sale price to sell his portion, with Providence planning to change the name of the company, as TheWrap reported exclusively on Sunday.
Why it seems unlikely that Providence keeps Wasserman intact is that doing so would disqualify any number of likely buyers. Ari Emanuel is interested in the music division but Endeavor was required to divest itself of sports assets in its recent consolidation and thus could not buy that piece. United Talent Agency is interested in both the sports and music businesses but by law cannot own the Brillstein tv and film management business. Range may want to buy Brillstein, the movie and television management business.
A lot of pins will fall from this quick-moving bowling ball, and it is a stunningly fast outcome that is worth recapping:
On Super Bowl Sunday, TheWrap broke the storythat a group of music agents at Wasserman were demanding that Wasserman step down from the company after his connection to Jeffrey Epstein and racy emails with convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell surfaced earlier this month.
In the wake of that, over several days, about two dozen artists left the agency or spoke out against Wasserman.
The reckoning may not make sense to many. No one is accusing Wasserman of being a pedophile or a sex trafficker himself. He is not alleged to have used Epstein as a pimp for teenaged sex, as appears to be the case for others like sports team owner Steve Tisch or Apollo founder Leon Black or British royal Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
Nonetheless, there was no goodwill extended to Wasserman in this case. And while Puck’s Matt Belloni wrote on Friday that no one deserves to lose their company over sexy emails, that’s exactly what happened just a few hours later.
From what I’m told, Wasserman has made some powerful enemies in Hollywood, Emanuel and his former father-in-law uber lawyer Ken Ziffren among them. He left unnecessary bruised feelings and the impression of being a jerk when he insisted that his ex-wife Laura exit the country club to which they belonged when married, Hillcrest, despite the club’s longstanding policy to accommodate both divorced partners.
And while Wasserman may have given the outward impression of having rescued the music department by buying it from Sam Gores’ Paradigm in 2021, many of the agents would rather strike out on their own, feeling burned from both experiences.
“This was the dam bursting,” said one individual who knows the agency business well. “These [music] agents pride themselves on being decent family people…. So this is against everything they stand for, on top of last year’s trash.”
I think it’s also true that Hollywood wants to move on from the grimy stain of the Harvey Weinstein years. Wasserman brings back all the nightmares of that time, and perhaps zero tolerance is the new normal.
Another shoe remains to drop here, which is LA28. Social media (as well as my text inbox) is full of commenters who find it odd that Wasserman has had to step down from his agency, but remains the public face of Los Angeles for the 2028 Olympics. For the moment, Wasserman says he is excited to focus on that role. We will see if that is sustainable.
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