EXCLUSIVE: A besieged Casey Wasserman is back in Los Angeles from the Winter Olympics in Italy as the backlash from the LA28 chief’s lurid emails in the Epstein files intensifies and revolts emerge on multiple fronts. The revelations of Wasserman’s intimate exchanges with deceased pedophile Epstein’s convicted procurer Ghislaine Maxwell finds the scion of Hollywood royalty facing unrest among the Olympics board and a trusted ally is now a contender to take over organizing the 2028 Summer Games in L.A.
Former House Speaker and current LA28 board member Kevin McCarthy‘s name has been raised as a potential replacement for Wasserman as Olympic chair, at least in the interim, I’m told.
Nothing is etched in stone as there are still deep concerns among key participants on and off the board that the onetime Bakersfield congressman lacks any real executive experience besides his short and unsuccessful 239-day stint as Speaker of the House. However, as some chafe at the prospect of the Republican becoming the frontman of LA28, McCarthy is also viewed as the best bulwark so far against the anticipated wrath of Donald Trump over new-ish pal Wasserman being pushed overboard.
Along with being able to keep much needed federal funds still flowing to the 2028 Games (which cost $7.15 billion and rising), McCarthy also is in a unique bipartisan position.
Tight with POTUS after being the first GOPer to re-embrace Trump in the aftermath of the January 6, 2021 MAGA mob attack on the Capitol, McCarthy also has a close personal friendship with L.A. Mayor Karen Bass out of their years together in California’s congressional delegation.
Alternatively, LA28 board member and ex-L.A. Lakers owner Jeanie Buss and LA28 Organizing Committee CEO Reymond Hoover are also being floated as possible substitutes for Wasserman, sources say of an extremely “volatile” situation. Hiking up the Trump Team quota, McCarthy was named to the LA28 board in November of last year. First Trump term chief of staff Reince Priebus, big Trump donor Diane Hendricks, Dallas Mavericks owner Patrick Dumont, and former Trump personal banker Ken Moelis were also perched on the LA28 board by Wasserman at the same time.
The former Speaker did not respond to requests from Deadline for comment on him taking over at LA28. Reps for LA28, which has the likes of McCarthy, Buss, ex-Labor Secretary Eliane Chao, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Jessica Alba on its board, were also radio silent. As others spoke of a change in the works, one individual close to events was adamant there was “zero” truth to McCarthy or anyone else stepping into Wasserman’s Olympics gig.
Yet very real rumblings among the handpicked board and outside pressures come as Wasserman is working the phones and personal power-player relationships in hyperdrive in attempts to mitigate the Epstein fallout. Already, big-name clients like Chappell Roan, and today country singer Orville Peck, have ditched the music division of his company over the latest disclosures and a conflict of “moral values.” Things seem to be getting shaky too at Brillstein Entertainment, which was acquired by the ambitious Wasserman in late 2023.
In the most recent blow, Wasserman earlier today was removed from Telemundo’s February 12 Playmakers event. The exec’s name was absent from an updated invite to the NBCUniversal gathering of “sports leaders” at Universal Studios. “We were informed by his office that unfortunately he’s no longer available to join us at The Playmakers event,” a Telemundo spokesperson told Deadline.
Outside of the biz, the reelection-seeking and circumspect Bass has said Wasserman’s LA28 fate is ultimately up to the board. Beyond the incumbent mayor, there have been calls by a number of other top local L.A. politicians, including newly filed mayoral candidate and City Council member Nithya Raman, for the exec to resign before he becomes more of a “distraction.”
Still, as veteran agents at his music business and more either leave or seek to push Wasserman himself to exit, anxiety is rising in a number of circles within LA28 and elsewhere that more Epstein connections are still to come. Over at a well-heeled The Wallis Delivers: Cheers to the Home Team event to honor Wasserman and Buss later this month, organizers are reading the temperature of the likes of attendees such as Honorary Chair and NBA commissioner Adam Silver and outgoing Disney CEO Bob Iger to see what to do before the February 26 event.
Next being the operative term, it seems, on a number of fronts.
“Casey told everyone before he barely knew them (Epstein and Maxwell) besides that trip to Africa,” an agency insider tells Deadline, referencing the well-known two-week-long 2002 humanitarian trip the then-young sports agent Wasserman took with his then-wife, Bill Clinton, Kevin Spacey, Maxwell and Epstein on the latter’s luxury plane. “Then more comes out, like these emails with Maxwell. He’s says he’s sorry, everybody says that. What don’t we know? Everyone already looks like suckers, idiots.”
The January 30 mass dumping of millions of pages of sporadically redacted Epstein documents, images and more unveiled a batch of 2003 emails between Wasserman and Maxwell. The correspondence found the then-married former asking the latter, “So what do I have to do to see you in a tight leather outfit?” In the back-and-forth, Maxwell promised Wasserman a massage that would blow his mind and Wasserman imagined Maxwell coming out to the West Coast “so that you can float naked down the beach and no one can see you unless they are close up.”
Soon, after the emails became public, which Wasserman had never mentioned publicly before, the grandson of one-time Tinseltown kingpin Lew Wasserman put out a statement obviously aiming to put the whole matter in the rearview. “I deeply regret my correspondence with Ghislaine Maxwell which took place over two decades ago, long before her horrific crimes came to light,” he said. “I am terribly sorry for having any association with either of them,” Wasserman added of Epstein and Maxwell.
IOC brass at the Milan Cortina Winter Games seemed to think the apology was enough, but back home more questions of Wasserman’s judgment and credibility were being raised. Those questions got a lot louder more than a week ago when an FBI report from the early 2000s surfaced, talking about “several unidentified young women” on Epstein’s plane during the humanitarian mission.
Up in the San Francisco area for the Super Bowl this past weekend before coming to L.A., it is not clear yet whether Wasserman will head back to Italy as previously planned, for the end of Winter Games.
“He did this to himself,” a well-connected political operative told Deadline on Tuesday. “He can’t screw over the Olympics with this sh*t, he has to go.”
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