Endeavor Chief Executive Ari Emanuel on Wednesday castigated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, citing a massive failure of Israeli intelligence agencies to anticipate Saturday’s surprise cross-border attack by Hamas militants.
“As a Jew, what happened in Israel this past weekend was one of the worst pogroms in history, not including the Holocaust,” Emanuel said, speaking at Bloomberg’s Screentime conference Wednesday night. His Beverly Hills-based company owns Hollywood talent agency WME and UFC.
Emanuel, who has spoken out about antisemitism, blamed Netanyahu for making Israel vulnerable to “heinous” attacks by Hamas “terrorists.”
“From my opinion, a morally corrupt Bibi Netanyahu exposed Israel and its people to rape, death, beheadings of children, murders of fathers, mothers, grandmothers and he did it to stay in power,” Emanuel said. “I just think it’s time that we get rid of this man.”
Emanuel also called out the leaders of rival Creative Artists Agency.
In a recent lawsuit, actor Julia Ormond said top CAA agents, including co-chairman Bryan Lourd and Kevin Huvane, discouraged her from coming forward about an alleged sexual assault by Harvey Weinstein. Weinstein’s attorney denied the allegations.
Emanuel said Lourd and Huvane should take a leave of absence and called for an outside investigation into Ormond’s claims about the agency’s involvement.
“I think it’s disgusting what they did, and it happened when they are just taking power,” Emanuel said.
CAA has called the claims baseless and said that the law firm Paul, Weiss had done a review and “found nothing to support Ms. Ormond’s claims against CAA.”
“CAA takes all allegations of sexual assault and abuse seriously, and has compassion for Ms. Ormond and the experience she described in her complaint,” the talent agency said in a statement. “However, the claims that Ms. Ormond has levied against the agency are completely without merit.”
CAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Emanuel’s remarks.
Weinstein, 70, is serving a 23-year prison sentence in New York, where he was convicted in 2020 of sexually assaulting other women. In February, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison for raping a woman in a Beverly Hills hotel in 2013.