More On:

ari emanuel

Ari Emanuel splits from girlfriend Sarah Staudinger

Ari Emanuel’s Endeavor agency launching coronavirus podcast

Ari Emanuel hosts VIP kickoff for Frieze’s inaugural LA art fair

Saudi Prince touring US to meet with America’s moguls

A new Ari Emanuel profile in The New Yorker details how the super-agent wants to be viewed as a visionary — not another Hollywood suit — while his company plots another IPO attempt.

“In ten years, is anybody gonna remember Bob Iger?” Emanuel asks New Yorker writer Connie Bruck. “Probably not. They’re gonna remember Steve Jobs. They’re gonna remember Elon Musk. They’re gonna remember Presidents, actors. You know, businessmen like me, they’re not really.”

Iger is the executive chairman and former CEO of Disney. Emanuel founded Endeavor in 1995, and has repped Oprah Winfrey, Martin Scorsese, Charlize Theron, Mark Wahlberg, Donald Trump and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

A former employee at Emanuel’s agency says in the New Yorker piece, “Ari was the best agent of his generation… But there’s a disconnect between Ari the agent and Ari and everything else. I think his brain is still wired as an agent. And when you’re that successful there’s a tendency to think, Why can’t I do that?” 

The profile also covers his agency’s Middle Eastern funding sources, as well as its live-events acquisition spree, including UFC.

Emanuel apparently briefly played professional racquetball after graduating from college in 1983, before he decided to work in Hollywood. “I read this article about [former CAA power broker] Mike Ovitz,” Emanuel says of his start. “And I said, ‘F–k, I wanna f–king go to work for that dude.” He became a CAA trainee in 1987.

Endeavor is hatching a new IPO bid after a 2019 attempt fizzled.

Share this article:

Source: Read Full Article