Brandt Joel, a high agent at WME who represents the likes of Jason Momoa and Matthew McConaughey, has develop into embroiled in a bigotry storm on the firm after sending, after which deleting, an incendiary textual content to a WhatsApp group in response to the killing of six Israeli hostages over the weekend.
On Sunday, Israel’s navy stated it has recovered the our bodies of six hostages killed by Hamas militants in Gaza — together with an Israeli-American captive.
In a bunch chat exhibiting solidarity with Israel that incorporates WME staff, however that isn’t formally affiliated with the corporate, the information of the demise of the hostages was being mentioned after somebody shared President Joe Biden’s official assertion on the incident. In screenshots of the group chat obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, WME’s Nancy Josephson and Katie Slater comment on the tragedy of the killings. Joel then texted in response to the information, “Screw the left kill all.”
A supply instructed THR that Joel deleted the message a couple of minutes later.
Joel, a senior accomplice at WME who additionally represents Idris Elba, Justin Timberlake and Mahershala Ali, had beforehand spent 4 years within the U.S. Navy and served in Iraq earlier than turning into an agent.
A supply tells THR that this isn’t the primary time Joel has despatched divisive messages within the group chat, and shared a earlier textual content the place Joel had stated WME had been “weak” on shoppers who had spoken out concerning the ongoing conflict in Gaza. “We now have been weak each division has shoppers we must always have fired and we didn’t and it reveals we’re weak and we’ve got tolerated abhorrent habits,” Joel texted, though it’s unclear which shoppers he’s straight referring to and what habits he deemed “abhorrent.”
Joel added, “That is all polyanna crap. No one took a stand on this chat that I’m conscious of besides Richard and addressed it. Fortunately there are only a few outliers but we’ve got not fired one and it’s shameful.”
The bloody and brutal conflict in Gaza has created an excessive amount of stress in Hollywood, with controversy following those that have spoken out concerning the battle. In October, just a few weeks after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led terrorist assault on Southern Israel when some 1,200 folks had been killed and greater than 200 taken captive, CAA was engulfed in a firestorm after energy agent Maha Dakhil posted feedback on her private Instagram. On Oct. 18, Dakhil reposted an announcement from an account referred to as Free Palestine that learn, “You’re presently studying who helps genocide.” Dakhil added, “That’s the road for me.” She then posted a photograph captioned, “What’s extra heartbreaking than witnessing genocide? Witnessing the denial that genocide is occurring.”
Dakhil rapidly apologized and stayed with the corporate, however was fired by her consumer Aaron Sorkin over the social media feedback and within the speedy aftermath of the incident needed to step down from her position as CAA’s co-head of movement footage and resigned from the company’s inner board. She has since regained a management position on the firm.
In November, actress Melissa Barrera, a WME consumer, was fired from Scream VII after a sequence of social media posts concerning the scenario in Gaza. “Gaza is presently being handled like a focus camp,” she wrote in a single publish on Instagram tales. “Cornering everybody collectively, with no the place to go, no electrical energy no water.… Individuals have learnt nothing from our histories. And identical to our histories, individuals are nonetheless silently watching all of it occur. THIS IS GENOCIDE & ETHNIC CLEANSING.”
Experiences on the time steered that WME was additionally contemplating dropping Barrera over her stance, however the actress instructed THR in a March interview that she all the time felt supported by her reps. “It’s undoubtedly onerous, as a result of I used to be simply in such a cloudy mind-set, however I used to be very lucky,” she stated by tears as she recalled the turbulent second. “I had loads of help from the folks round me: my workforce and particularly my publicists — they simply carried me.”