Famous Clients Bail On Casey Wasserman Over Gross Sex Emails To Ghislaine Maxwell

While the world's attention is currently focused on the various performances, admissions of infidelity, and blood-soaked mascots of the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, the guy running the next Summer Olympics is coming under intense pressure for popping up in the latest tranche of Jeffrey Epstein emails. That would be Casey Wasserman, founder/CEO of an eponymous talent agency and chair of the Los Angeles 2028 organizing committee. He retains those positions for now, though an increasing number of clients are leaving the agency or calling for him to step down. When you have to split hairs about exactly how associated you were with Jeffrey Epstein, that makes sense.

Wasserman founded the agency in 1998 and quickly expanded it by acquiring as many competitors as possible, including legendary basketball agent Arn Tellem and the powerful soccer agency SFX. You need money and connections to do stuff like that, and every part of running the agency was made easier by the fact that Wasserman's grandfather was Lew Wasserman, one of the most powerful people in 20th-century Hollywood. Lew took Casey under his wing as a teenager, giving the younger Wasserman access to his extensive network of connections and vast fortune, which swelled after Lew sold his agency, MCA, to Matsushita Electric (now Panasonic) in 1990 for $6.5 bilion.

The Wasserman agency primarily represents athletes and musicians, and Casey Wasserman has made himself synonymous with mogulhood. His public persona is that of a power player connecting the worlds of sports and entertainment to globally powerful people; to that end, his 50th birthday party was attended by Robert Kraft, Bob Iger, Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Gavin Newsom, and Doug Emhoff. (Imagine Dragons headlined; even this guy can't buy taste!) In 2014, L.A.'s then-mayor Eric Garcetti appointed Wasserman to spearhead the city's push to bring the Olympics to town, and three years later, L.A. was awarded the 2028 Games.