Following an exodus of talent who have left the Wasserman Group talent agency after emails between founder Casey Wasserman and Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell were revealed in the Justice Department’s latest tranche of documents, pressure for the founder to step down came to a boiling point in recent days. On Friday, Wasserman announced that he was selling the company as he had become a “distraction” to the business he founded 24 years ago.
In a memo sent to Wasserman agency employees and obtained by Rolling Stone, the founder apologized for his “past personal mistakes” that have caused “so much discomfort.” “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,” he added.
Wasserman acknowledged the “pain experienced by the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell is unimaginable,” and reiterated claims that his interactions with Epstein were limited a humanitarian trip as part of a delegation with the Clinton Foundation in 2002 and “a handful of emails that I deeply regret sending.”
The recent batch of Epstein files unveiled salacious emails exchanged between Wasserman and Maxwell years before Epstein’s criminal behavior came to light. In one of the messages, Wasserman asked Maxwell, “What do I have to do to see you in a tight leather outfit?” In a separate message dated April 1, 2003, he asked, “Where are you, I miss you. I will be in nyc for 4 days starting april 22…can we book that massage now?”
Maxwell wrote back, “All that rubbing – are you sure you can take it?” and, “There are a few spots that apparently drive a man wild – I suppose I could practise them on you.” Maxwell mentioned being in Brazil and asked Wasserman if he had ever been. He responded, “Never…take me!”
Maxwell was later convicted of conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse minors between 1994 and 2004. Wasserman has not been accused of any criminal activity.
In his memo on Friday, Wasserman wrote, “I’m heartbroken that my brief contact with them 23 years ago has caused you, this company, and its clients so much hardship over the past days and weeks.” The founder praised the agency’s 4,000 employees, calling them “the absolute best in the business” and said their clients “expect – and deserve – world-class representation.
“At this moment, I believe that I have become a distraction to those efforts. That is why I have begun the process of selling the company, an effort that is already underway.” In the interim, Mike Watts, the company’s chief operating officer, will assume day-to-day control of the business. Wasserman, who still serves as the chairman and president of the LA28 Olympic committee, wrote in his note that he will devote his “full attention to delivering Los Angeles an Olympic Games in 2028 that is worthy of this outstanding city.” The LA28 executive committee said on Wednesday that Wasserman will continue leading preparations for the Summer Games despite calls for him to step down.
Before signing off, he added, “I’m beyond proud of what this company has accomplished to date and excited to watch its next chapter.”
Over the past week, Chappell Roan, Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino, Weyes Blood, Chelsea Cutler, Wednesday, Water From Your Eyes, Orville Peck, and Beach Bunny have cut ties with the Wasserman Group. “I hold my teams to the highest standards and have a duty to protect them as well,” Roan told fans in her announcement. “No artist, agent, or employee should ever be expected to defend or overlook actions that conflict so deeply with our own moral values.”
As previously reported by Rolling Stone, Wasserman had found himself in an untenable situation internally in recent months. Having been confronted by executive leadership in an intervention-like setting prior to the latest release of documents (reports of his association with Maxwell began circulating in 2024), and questioned about the nature of his relationship with Epstein, Wasserman assured his senior staff that “there’s nothing else” that would come out and implicate him with the Epstein-Maxwell trials, according to one person privy to the meeting. Then, the emails in the latest Epstein files dropped, leaving his closest associates feeling betrayed, says the source.
Casey Wasserman, the grandson of late Hollywood mogul Lew Wasserman, first made his name in the sports agency sector. He launched Wasserman Media Group after graduating from UCLA, building its roster to include leagues and players spanning basketball, baseball, and soccer, among other sports. An interest in the live music space would bring him to the attention of Paradigm’s Tom Gores, who was looking to sell the agency’s music vertical. The acquisition would bring to Wasserman a slew of new music clients, including arena- and stadium-fillers Coldplay, Ed Sheeran, Kendrick Lamar, Phish, and Dave Matthews, along with hundreds of smaller acts across all genres, and especially in indie rock.
In a way, Wasserman, by virtue of his last name, was no stranger to scandal. Lew Wasserman, who transformed the Hollywood agency business in the Sixties and Seventies as head of MCA, weathered anti-trust scrutiny and criticism of perceived Washington-Hollywood collusion. And as Casey Wasserman detailed to The Hollywood Reporter in a 2025 cover story, his father, from whom he was estranged, was convicted of money laundering. “My biological father was about as bad a human being as you could imagine,” said Wasserman.
Casey Wasserman’s own appearance as a bold-faced name also preceded the Epstein debacle by more than a year. On Aug. 1, 2024, The Daily Mail featured an expose on Wasserman alleging the executive engaged in inappropriate relationships with female staffers. He disputed the facts laid out in the article, but the damage was done when it came to one marquee client: Billie Eilish, who would decamp to rival WME two weeks later.
This story was originally published Feb. 13, 2026.
Matt Collyer of The Planet Smashers
