A top Hollywood powerbroker will sell his talent agency amidst fallout from his association with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and Epstein’s longtime girlfriend and accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, in a bid to keep his Olympics job.
Casey Wasserman, an entertainment executive and chairman of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, appeared numerous times in the tranche of DOJ files related to its investigation into Epstein.
In a message to his 4,000 employees at Wasserman Media Group on Friday, Wasserman apologized and said he had “become a distraction” from the firm’s work, the Wall Street Journal first reported.
“I’m deeply sorry that my past personal mistakes have caused you so much discomfort,” he wrote to his employees. “It’s not fair to you, and it’s not fair to the clients and partners we represent so vigorously and care so deeply about.”
The message said that while he will step away from his business, he would continue to lead the 2028 Olympic Games.
The board of the Olympics organizing committee for the 2028 games hired outside counsel to look into Wasserman’s prior interactions with Epstein and Mawell. This week, the board announced that its investigation into Wasserman found that his relationship with the sex trafficking couple “did not go beyond what has already been publicly documented.”
Wasserman said that longtime executive Mike Watts would take over the day-to-day operations of the talent agency.
The Wasserman Media Group, a prominent entertainment and sports agency, represents thousands of notable figures, including Coldplay, Ed Sheeran, Kendrick Lamar, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
Several of his clients, however, had denounced him in recent days, including pop singer Chappell Roan, Bethany Cosentino of Best Coast, and American Soccer legend Abby Wambach. Several members of the L.A. city council have also called for him to resign from his role as chairman of the next Olympics.
His appearance in the Epstein files included suggestive messages between himself and Epstein’s Maxwell.
The emails are from 2003, years before Epstein first fell into legal trouble in Florida over his sexual abuse.
Wasserman wrote to Maxwell at the time: “I think of you all the time,” adding, “So what do I have to do to see you in a tight leather outfit?”
One month later, Wasserman told Maxwell he would be in New York and inquired about booking a massage.
Maxwell answered, “There are a few spots that apparently drive a man wild — I suppose I could practise them on you and you could let me know if they work or not?”
At this point, Wasserman was 29 years old and married with a young family.
Wasserman entered Epstein’s world in 2002, one year before these emails were exchanged, when former President Bill Clinton invited him to join a two-week humanitarian tour to visit HIV/AIDS project sites in Africa. The men flew on Epstein’s private plane.
In his note to employees, Wasserman asserted that he had only “limited interactions” with Epstein and Maxwell.
“It was years before their criminal conduct came to light, and, in its entirety, consisted of one humanitarian trip to Africa and a handful of emails that I deeply regret sending,” he said.
“The pain experienced by the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell is unimaginable — and I’m glad, as I’m sure you all are, that those who helped them commit their crimes are rightly being held accountable,” he wrote.
