Wasserman has apologised for communicating with Ghislaine Maxwell after flirtatious emails they exchanged more than 20 years ago were releas
Nadia Khomami at The Guardian:
The pop star Chappell Roan has announced she has left her talent agency after emails between its founder and Ghislaine Maxwell were featured in the Epstein files.
The Grammy-winning artist shared a statement on social media announcing her departure from Wasserman, led by the sports and entertainment executive Casey Wasserman.
âAs of today, I am no longer represented by Wasserman,â Roan, best known for hits including Good Luck, Babe! and Pink Pony Club, wrote on Instagram. âI hold my teams to the highest standards and have a duty to protect them as well. No artist, agent or employee should ever be expected to defend or overlook actions that conflict so deeply with our own moral values.â
Documents recently released by the US justice department included flirtatious email exchanges between Wasserman, who was married at the time, and Maxwell from 2003. Maxwell was convicted in 2021 on federal charges that she conspired with Epstein to sexually abuse teenage girls.
Wasserman, who is in charge of organising the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, has apologised for communicating with Maxwell. âI deeply regret my correspondence with Ghislaine Maxwell,â he said, adding that it occurred âlong before her horrific crimes came to lightâ.
[...]
The indie rock band Wednesday said they were âaghastâ to see Wasserman feature in the Epstein files and they hoped he would step down âfor the sake of his staffâ.
The Dropkick Murphys posted on social media: âThe namesake of the agency is in the Epstein files so ⌠we GONE.â
The rock band Beach Bunny said they were âhugely disappointed and disgustedâ that Wasserman âhad involvement with Ghislaine Maxwellâ.
Others who shared statements about Wasserman included Best Coastâs frontwoman, Bethany Cosentino, who wrote âpeople in power canât keep skating byâ, and the experimental indie rock duo Water From Your Eyes, who said they had âno interest in being affiliated with Casey Wassermanâ.
Alexis Krauss of Sleigh Bells said the duo would not leave the company, citing the financial impact it would have on the band. âDo I wish I could burn it all down, boycott and divest? Sure I do,â she wrote.
Other prominent musicians represented by Wasserman include Ed Sheeran, Kendrick Lamar, Coldplay, SZA, Lorde and Tyler, the Creator.
The scope of the Epstein Files has extended to the music world, as Chappell Roan cuts ties with Casey Wasserman due to his emails to Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
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so, Chapelle Roan, Orville Peck, and Weyes Blood have left the Wasserman booking agency (the agency Louis is also with, among other friends of Harry & his, for example Ed Sheeran, Hurts (Theo Hutchcraft), Lewis Capaldi, Liam Gallagher, etc.) after the agency's CEO, Casey Wasserman, appeared in the Epstein files multiple times.
I have just now published a post that I had written about Louis' booking agency in May 2025 and all of the info that I posted, which I referenced with their website, is now gone.
The whole thing is just really fucked, albeit unsurprising. Another disgusting male CEO tanking the reputation of his entire company. Not saying the people who closely worked with him didn't know what he got up to and are innocent. Anyway, I hope that POS at least steps down. We'll see.
wasserman: Louis Tomlinson is bringing his Away From Home festival to the US, across two days in Cooperstown, NY. Tickets are on sale now â head to our link in bio for more information! #WassMusic
Sleigh Bells singer Alexis Krauss has opened up about the pressures many artists face amid calls to boycott major companies in the music industry.
In an Instagram post, Krauss discussed the calls for artists to boycott or cut ties with companies including Wasserman â she also name-checked Spotify, Live Nation and Ticketmaster â and explained why she felt her band canât afford to do so.
Acts including Chappell Roan, Water For Your Eyes and Wednesday have all severed ties with the talent agency Wasserman after its CEO, Casey Wasserman, faced backlash for his email correspondence with convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell over 20 years ago.
Earlier this month, Wasserman said he âdeeply regretsâ emails from 2003 between him and Maxwell, claiming that they were sent âlong before her horrific crimes came to lightâ. Best Coastâs Bethany Cosentino led the calls for him to step down at the time.
The messages had featured in the latest government files on the late child sex offender and human trafficker Jeffrey Epstein (via The Guardian).
âIâve been spending a lot of time lately contemplating my responsibility as an individual and an artist in a system that can be exploitative, morally bankrupt and at times criminal,â she began. âOver the course of my 28 year career in the music industry Iâve often questioned why I continue to be a part of it.â
Looking back on her time as a teenager in a band whose âbody was digitally altered without my consent to make me look thinner,â she said: âDespite being in a band that Iâm deeply proud of, that has tried to treat people ethically, work with individuals and companies that share our values and act with integrity, I find myself often beholden to corporations and systems that prioritize profit over ethics.
âDo I wish I could burn it all down, boycott and divest? Sure I do. But to be totally honest I canât afford to. My band canât afford to. Our ability to make a living in this industry is dependent on our engagement with these companies. This might not be the case for all artists but for a mid-tier band like ours, I struggle to find a way around it.â
Discussing Wasserman, she said sheâd âlove to just leaveâ but added: âCan we? No because I love and respect our agent and I trust him to make the decision that is best for himself, his family and his artists. The agents at Wasserman are not the villains.â
She continued, âHave my values aligned with every sync weâve ever approved? No they havenât, but does that income enable me to pay mine and my childâs health insurance every month? You bet it does ⌠In my opinion itâs not the responsibility of the artists, especially those struggling to make a living, to fix these broken systems.â
She also said that while sheâd âloveâ to take Sleigh Bellsâ music off Spotify and stop supporting Live Nation and Ticketmaster, it wouldnât be feasible for an act who rely on the streaming platform and âbarely breaks even touringâ.
A number of artists have removed their music from Spotify in recent months, following reports last summer that the then-CEO Daniel Ek led a âŹ600million (ÂŁ524million) investment into Helsing, a Munich-based company creating drones and artificial intelligence for military operations.
As for Ticketmaster and its parent company Live Nation, regulators in the US sued them in September over alleged âillegalâ tactics when reselling tickets. And in October, the Association Of Independent Festivals (AIF) called for Live Nation to be broken up for exceeding âmarket dominanceâ of arena, stadium and outdoor gigs.
Krauss finished her statement by calling on âmore multimillion and billionaire artistsâ to hold large institutions accountable, explaining, âAt some point you just donât need anymore fucking money,â and explaining, âIâm still in this business because I love my band, I love my bandmate and I love the people who have given so much of themselves to our band. They are worth investing in, even if that means simultaneously supporting a depraved system.â
As for Sleigh Bells, their most recent album, âBunky Becky Birthday Boyâ â containing the single âWanna Start A Band?â came out in April 2025, while they headed out on a US and Canadian tour last summer.
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wassermanmusic Louis Tomlinsonâs Away From Home Festival touched down at Brewery Ommegang for a sunny Cooperstown weekender of music, campsite hangs, brewery pours (including a festival-only beer), and stacks of food and merch. The festival included performances from #WassMusic artists Daya, Lauv, and Plain White Tâs, with Louis Tomlinson closing it out for an unforgettable event. See you next year!
Schumpeterâs transition is perhaps most fascinating, since his ironical attitude toward politics and public affairs is the stuff of legend. In 1919, he tussled with Max Weber over the relationship of values, science, and politics in a coffeehouse debate over Bolshevism. Weber, recently appointed at the University of Vienna, planned to return to Germany and believed Schumpeter would make a good successor. They had not previously met and, according to Felix Somary, had starkly different personalities. Weber âtook nothing lightly,â while Schumpeter âtook nothing hard.â Somary and the historian Ludo Hartmann arranged a meeting at CafĂŠ Landtmann in the Palais Lieben-Auspitz on the Ringstrasse, where the Mengers and the Austrian School sometimes gathered.
The conversation turned to the Russian Revolution, which the sardonic Schumpeter asserted would offer a practical test of socialismâs theories. This enraged Weber, who felt the âlaboratoryâ would be âheaped with human corpses.â Schumpeter responded, âEvery anatomy classroom is the same thing.â Things only deteriorated from there:
âAll around us the cafĂŠ customers stopped their card games and listened eagerly, until the point when Weber sprang to his feet and rushed into the Ringstrasse, crying, âThis is intolerable!â Hartmann followed with Weberâs hat and vainly tried to calm him down. Schumpeter, who had remained behind with me, only smiled and said âHow can someone carry on like that in a coffee house.â"Â
While Schumpeter was as ardent an opponent of socialism as there was, he did not believe it to be the scientistâs job to meddle in political mattersâlet socialism dig its own grave. In this dustup with Weber, the hero of âobjectivity,â Schumpeter ribbed the German over his inability to separate value judgments and scientific evaluation. Schumpeter claimed that if one wished to do politics, one should do politics, but one should not dress it up in scientific garb. Moreover, one must remain civilized in debateâespecially in the coffeehouse!
"When I say I've booked a 39-date arena tour for Louis, people can't believe it and they can't believe his ticket sales," says Tomlinson's a
WASSERMANâS HOLLY ROWLAND ON THE RISE OF LOUIS TOMLINSON
"When I say I've booked a 39-date arena tour for Louis, people can't believe it and they can't believe his ticket sales," says Tomlinson's agent
By IQ on 23 Nov 2022
Wasserman Music agent Holly Rowland has spoken to IQ about Louis Tomlinsonâs 2023 European arena tour.
The former One Direction star is to embark on a 39-date outing across 28 countries next year, having recently completed a pandemic-delayed tour that spanned 57 dates in Europe, South America, Asia and Australia.
âLouis wanted to go everywhere,â says Rowland, who represents Tomlinson with Wassmermanâs Alex Hardee.
âOne Direction never really toured Europe extensively â they did the major cities and the stadiums â but they never went to Eastern Europe for example. During their solo careers, Harry Styles has never done it and Niall Horan has never done it.â
Rowland believes that unlike Styles and Horan, who have also carved out solo careers since the best-selling boyband disbanded in 2016, Tomlinsonâs worth is often underestimated.
âWhen I say Iâve booked a 39-date arena tour for Louis, people canât believe it,â Rowland tells IQ. âThey donât believe his sales or the fact he has his own festival.â
If Tomlinson was overlooked before, it all looks set to change now. Last Friday (18 November), the star beat Bruce Springsteen to score his first solo UK No. 1 album with âFaith In The Futureâ via BMG. At the same time, ticket sales for his forthcoming tour are âreally strongâ despite going on sale a year in advance.
âIt will sell out,â says Rowland. âLondonâs The O2 [cap. 21,000], for example, is on 90% and even markets which are typically late sellers, like Greece, are nearly sold out even though the concerts are still a year away.â
Rowland says itâs thanks to a symbiotic album-tour campaign that Tomlinsonâs sales are strong on both the recorded and the live side.
âYou wouldnât typically go on sale with a tour so early but we needed to go out before the album so we could get the pre-orders,â she explains. âSynchronicity with recorded and live has sometimes been missed before but now, more than ever, itâs so important. An artist does well because their whole team is across everything and is communicating with each other.â
Rowland and Tomlinsonâs team are particularly proud of the ticket prices for the tour, which start at ÂŁ27.50 regionally.
âHeâs a man of the people,â she says. âFor example, he wonât do any golden circles or platinum or flexible ticketing or increased isle seating or paid meet-and-greets. Thatâs his philosophy.
âThe issue nowadays is costs are going up so you have to cover your base but also keep it fair for the customer. The promoters crunched the numbers on their side and there was a lot of back and forth on the ticket price but obviously, the tour is spread across multiple dates so that helps. Plus itâs something Louis really wants to do.â
Promoters working on Tomlinsonâs forthcoming tour include Live Nation (Slovenia, Hungary, Bulgaria), 8 Days a Week (Baltics), Pop Farm (Greece), Follow The Step (Poland), Charmenko (Romania), Fource Entertainment (Czech Republic) and SJM (UK).
The Faith In The Future 2023 outing is the follow-up to Tomlinsonâs first world tour, which concluded in September, having been pushed back due to the pandemic.
Highlights from the tour include South America â âone of Louisâs biggest marketsâ â which saw the star sell 30,000 tickets in Brazil, 30,000 in Buenos Aires and 21,000 in Mexico.
Rowland also notes an open-air show in Milan, Italy, at the beginning of September, which saw 34,000 tickets fly off the shelf in 48 hours.
2022 also saw the evolution of Tomlinsonâs own festival, Away From Home, which launched last year in Crystal Palace Park, London, and was free to attend.
This year the event moved to Malaga in Spain and featured The Vaccines, Sun Room, Stone and Hinds, all of whom performed alongside Tomlinson. This time around the event was ticked and Rowland says it sold 15,500 tickets in two days.
âI programmed it [alongside Louis] so it was quite fun to be on the other side of things, being the promoter and offering out supports to agents,â says Rowland.
Launching a festival was the natural progression for Tomlinson, who is known to hand-pick his own tour supports â many of whom go on to see great success, according to Rowland and Hardee.
âHis fanbase is so loyal and they hang on every word he says,â says Rowland. âHeâll go onstage after the support acts and say âHow amazing were they, go out and follow them,â and thatâs what his fans do because they really believe in him and trust him.â
Rowland notes that Tomlinsonâs fanbase is surprisingly young â between 14â18 years old â which translates into strong merchandise sales, thanks to the parent pound.
âWhatâs crazy is that his fanbase is so young, they werenât even around when One Direction were having their heyday. They mustâve found the band through siblings or somethingâŚâ she notes.
When asked if it has been difficult to extricate Tomlinson from his previous work in One Direction, Rowland says: âHe canât hide from his past â One Direction were one of the biggest boybands of all time â but we need to respect his path and see him for the artist he wants to be and not who he was.
And as for comparisons to his former bandmatesâ solo careers, she adds: âHarry is pop, Niall is more singer-songwriter and Louis is indie. Thatâs the music he loves and you can see that through the acts he requests to support him. Itâs time now to shine the light on who he is.â