Laufey has reportedly joined the growing list of artists who have fled the Wasserman Group talent agency after the relationship between founder Casey Wasserman and Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell was revealed in the latest batch of Justice Department documents.
The Hollywood Reporter revealed the news on Tuesday, Feb. 17, citing multiple sources, and said it wasn’t clear if the singer exited over the controversy or if she had already planned to leave the agency prior to the revelation. A source reportedly told the publication of her impending departure prior to the founder’s announcement on Friday, Feb. 13, that he was selling the agency. Reps for Laufey did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Over the past few weeks, Chappell Roan, Weyes Blood, Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino, Chelsea Cutler, Wednesday, Water From Your Eyes, Orville Peck, and Beach Bunny have also severed 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. “No artist, agent, or employee should ever be expected to defend or overlook actions that conflict so deeply with our own moral values. I have deep respect and appreciation for the agents and staff who work tirelessly for their artists, and I refuse to passively stand by.”
In his own statement, Peck wrote, “I have made the decision to no longer be represented by Wasserman talent agency.”
He continued: “I leave with a huge amount of compassion for the rest of the agents and staff at the agency, who are being left with a situation that impacts all of our work and livelihoods.”
“I have immense respect and affection for my booking agents, who are unfairly bearing the impact of the situation over at my booking agency, Wasserman,” Weyes Blood wrote in a letter to fans on Instagram. “As I continue conversations with them about their futures, I want to be unequivocally clear: I will not remain with Wasserman. Casey Wasserman’s behaviour is fundamentally at odds with everything I value.”
In her own announcement, Cutler said she was cutting ties with the agency, writing in a social media post: “In a time where many of us feel particularly angry, helpless, and exhausted by our country’s climate, it simply feels incongruent with my values to not speak up or take action.” She added, “I will no longer be represented by the Wasserman Agency.”
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In a 2003 email that recently came to light, Wasserman told Maxwell that he thought of her “all the time,” and asked, “What do I have to do to see you in a tight leather outfit?” In another one, he asked if the conditions on an upcoming trip would be foggy enough “so that you can float naked down the beach and no one can see you unless they are close up?”
In a public statement, Wasserman addressed the embarrassing revelations. “I deeply regret my correspondence with Ghislaine Maxwell, which took place over two decades ago, long before her horrific crimes came to light,” he told The New York Times. “I never had a personal or business relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. As is well documented, I went on a humanitarian trip as part of a delegation with the Clinton Foundation in 2002 on the Epstein plane. I am terribly sorry for having any association with either of them.”
His statement did little to quell the outrage. On Feb. 13, as pressure for the founder to step down from the agency came to a boiling point, Wasserman announced that he was selling the company he founded 24 years ago. In a memo sent to Wasserman agency employees and obtained by Rolling Stone, he apologised for his “past personal mistakes” and said, “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.”
Wasserman still serves as the chairman and president of the LA28 Olympic committee, but there have been many calls asking him to step aside. And he’s no longer participating in Telemundo’s Playmakers event in Los Angeles this week.
What’s unclear is where Roan, Laufey, Weyes Blood, Peck, Cosentino, and the other ex-Wasserman artists will now go for representation. Many expressed fondness for their Wasserman agents, and it’s possible they’ll stick with them if they go elsewhere.
This article was updated on Feb. 17 at 5:58 p.m. ET to include reports of Laufey leaving the Wasserman Group.
From Rolling Stone US
