Original Coverage & Source Attribution: www.thewrap.com
It should have been one of Ari Emanuel’s homecoming moments, his public talk about his new book, “Roll the Calls,” with Kara Swisher last week at the Ebell Theater.
Except Hollywood didn’t bother to show up. A few rows up front were reserved for Emanuel’s friends and VIPs which consisted of some family members, his close pal, director Pete Berg, and some agents, according to one person who sat nearby. The green room had a small selection of friends, no more than 20, circulating afterward. The audience was made up of “civilians,” as one person put it, rather than the insider VIPs that Emanuel, as one of Hollywood’s most powerful players, should command.
Just as well, though, because apparently Emanuel was really boring. He did not hold forth on the accumulated wisdom of his 40 years in the industry: building an agency, taking over a legacy rival, buying companies like the UFC and WWE for billions of dollars, pushing hard into live sports and going public and then private again.
Instead, he fell back on his grievances with his previous longtime partner Patrick Whitesell, who he swears he will never talk to again; complained about Jeffrey Katzenberg and President Joe Biden; and parried Swisher’s probing about his friendship with Elon Musk. By all accounts, it didn’t land with an audience that wasn’t interested in these personal scores.
But that, according to friends and former friends, is classic Ari, all alpha male energy, unfocused, distracted, but full of bravado. It’s all distilled in his book that — as an excerpt in the Wall Street Journal highlighted — opens with the all-caps word “RAGE” and proceeds to embrace that quality as the deep DNA that fuels him.
But it isn’t connecting.
“No one came in LA because no one gave a fuck,” said one former collaborator. “What’s got to be sad for him is: he spent 10 years writing this book and he’s not landing it. People in Hollywood are like: he’s an asshole. People on Wall Street are like: who is this guy? He’s just corrupt. So he’s not landing the way he wants to no matter how many podcasts he does.”
An individual close to Emanuel disputed that few industry insiders attended the event.
Respected business blogger Bob Lefsetz went radioactive on the book in a post on Sunday: “It’s not long before the reader decides he wants no part of Ari’s world, hustlers fighting for power and money… Used to be people read these books for an inside view of Hollywood. Because Hollywood was the dream factory, running the world. That’s far from the case today, for decades the focus has been on tech. Movies don’t change the world, TV can…and that’s where Ari starts out and…
“He keeps telling us he’s dyslexic, he’s got a chip on his shoulder. But this comes up over and over again. WE GET IT ARI! But we don’t completely buy it, because whatever is going on you ended up very successful, it couldn’t have held you back that much.”
Ouch. Emanuel has been doing lots and lots of podcasts, along with public appearances with celebrity interviewers like Swisher, Rachel Maddow and Tina Brown at paid ticket events in L.A., New York, London and Chicago.
But here in Hollywood, people who have read — or read pieces of — the book aren’t impressed. I spoke to several, including many who lived through the key events with him, and they say that he’s focused on trivial details, such as whether Jim Wiatt laughed at him in a meeting to discuss a merger with Endeavor, while entirely missing the broader picture of his actions.
“His stories are about deep resentment and hatred and they’re misaligned with why it happens,” said one of the people I talked to who has read the book. “He’s triggered like a child when resentment occurs and years later he can’t put it together. Because it’s never a real screw-up over about business issues. It’s always over ego and control.”
Another former collaborator had a similar view, that Emanuel can’t see his own hypocrisies. He complains that his former partner, Whitesell, went behind his back to their financial backer, Egon Durban. But then Emanuel excuses his own betrayal of William Morris’s leaders Jim Wiatt and Irv Weintraub. Wiatt was summarily ejected from the merged agencies of Endeavor and William Morris in the immediate aftermath, despite an agreement to share power. (An individual close to Emanuel said there was a difference because of the long-term friendship with Whitesell.)
“This book is such a selective Rashomon of what happened,” this person said. “In the Journal excerpt, there are two badges of honor: I lie. I gave my word and then I fucked them — Jim Wiatt and Irv Weintraub. When you start with the notion that you’re a liar and celebrate it — what else are you lying about?”
I certainly have a point of view, having lived through that merger battle in the year I was building TheWrap. As a witness to how Emanuel used blogger Nikki Finke (she used him too, don’t worry) to shape and manipulate perception of the merger, it is particularly icky to hear him celebrate that manipulation and excuse his own shabby treatment of Wiatt.
He writes: “At moments I feel bad about shivving Wiatt and Weintraub. Most often I don’t feel anything at all. I hope I get out of the game before the sharks eat my legs, but I also know the odds are 50-50.”
Here’s another petty obsession: CAA CEO Bryan Lourd. Emanuel can’t control his long-simmering envy over the more polished Lourd, who he calls a “sociopath” (Lourd is the furthest thing from that). His proof of that is accusing CAA of not protecting its female clients from the predations of Harvey Weinstein. (Julia Ormond, a former client, has sued CAA over this issue.)
A former friend angrily pointed out to me that none other than Sean Combs was seated at the head table at Emanuel’s wedding in St. Tropez in 2022. “He’s a walking contradiction,” said this person. “You want to go after enablers? But Sean Combs is OK?”
The individual close to Emanuel said he is no longer friends with Combs.
There are other, deeper dismissals of the book. For one thing, a second printing, I am told, is going to need a couple dozen factual corrections. The Emanuel insider said the corrections are no more than a dozen.
But most of all, Emanuel is silent on the topic of his biggest swing: taking Endeavor public in 2021 in an IPO with the private equity firm Silver Lake, and being forced to take the company private in 2025 as Wall Street failed to validate the company’s value. He was the CEO, and was responsible for this failure to launch, as I’ve written about before.
At the end of the day, he’s an agency guy. He tried and failed to build an entertainment behemoth. But he did build (or more accurately, acquired) a major talent agency that endures and thrives.
Lefsetz concludes: ““Roll the Calls” is a megalomaniacal victory lap. It is not unreadable, but at times you want to stop, because it’s only “I did this and then I did that,” over and over and over again. I don’t care how much money you’ve got Ari, how many famous friends, reading this book I can only come to one conclusion… YOUR’E A LOSER!”
“Roll the Calls” is on the New York Times bestseller list, but it’s not No. 1. That honor goes to a book by Princess Diana’s brother Charles Spencer, “Swan Song.” I’m hearing that Emanuel is furious.
