Chappell Roan mentioned she has dropped Wasserman, a expertise company, after its CEO, Casey Wasserman, was named within the Jeffrey Epstein recordsdata, making her the highest-profile artist to sever ties and to demand accountability and penalties.
“I refuse to passively stand by,” the “Pink Pony Membership” singer mentioned in an internet assertion Monday that referred to as for “accountability and management that earns belief.”
She added, “I maintain my groups to the very best requirements and have an obligation to guard them as properly. No artist, agent or worker ought to ever be anticipated to defend or overlook actions that battle so deeply with our personal ethical values.”
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The pop star continued, “Artists deserve illustration that aligns with their values and helps their security and dignity. This determination displays my perception that significant change in our trade requires accountability and management that earns belief.”
Wasserman, who can be the chairman of the Los Angeles Organizing Committee for the 2028 Olympic Video games, has denied any wrongdoing.
In a press release to The Hollywood Reporter, he defended that his e-mail correspondence with Epstein’s intercourse trafficking fixer Ghislaine Maxwell befell lengthy earlier than her arrest. He additionally defended a 2002 trip on Epstein’s airplane as an harmless “humanitarian journey as a part of a delegation with the Clinton Basis.”
Paperwork present the pair exchanged flirtatious emails in 2003, when Wasserman was married with a younger household. Maxwell was later convicted in 2021 on fees together with conspiracy to entice minors into unlawful intercourse acts, conspiracy to move them for that goal, intercourse trafficking a minor, intercourse trafficking conspiracy and transporting a minor to have interaction in intercourse acts.
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI by way of Getty Photos
Roan’s exhausting line follows comparable outcry and dissolution from a handful of different artists, together with Dropkick Murphys, and musicians Water from Your Eyes, Wednesday, Seashore Bunny and Finest Coast.
“It saddens us to half methods with [our agents], however the namesake of the company is within the Epstein recordsdata so…we GONE,” Dropkick Murphys wrote in a since-removed on-line submit confirmed by Billboard.
The duo Water from Your Eyes additionally pointedly blasted Wasserman for aligning himself with “the world’s most vile and repugnant social circle and human trafficking community” whereas asserting their removing from his company.
“His ‘deepest regrets’ and PR apologies imply nothing within the wake of violence towards ladies and youngsters brought on by Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and their accomplices,” they mentioned. “There have to be accountability for the atrocities dedicated by the ruling class. We can’t dwell in a world that enables for this injustice to happen with no consequence.”
Seashore Bunny equally described themselves as “vastly upset and disgusted.”
“[Wasserman’s] actions are abhorrent and disturbing on each degree,” mentioned the group, which was shaped by guitarist and vocalist Lili Trifilio. “As a lady in music I sadly am not stunned anymore when wealthy males in energy do horrible issues. I’m pissed off, I’m enraged. Fuck you Casey Wasserman.”
Like Seashore Bunny, the band Wednesday referred to as for Wasserman’s firm to kick him to the curb and alter its title.
“For the sake of his workers we hope that he steps down from the corporate, and it’s rebranded, however till that occurs or we discover a new residence at a brand new company we is not going to proceed to be related to Wasserman,” they wrote.
Different acts represented by Wasserman, in keeping with The New York Instances, embody Kendrick Lamar, Coldplay, Joni Mitchell, Lorde and Tyler, the Creator.