Brant Joel, a top agent at WME who represents Jason Momoa and Matthew McConaughey, among others, found himself caught in the crossfire of bigotry within the agency after he sent, and then deleted, an inflammatory message to a WhatsApp group in response to the killing of six Israeli hostages last weekend.
The Israeli army said on Sunday it had found the bodies of six hostages killed by Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip, including an Israeli-American prisoner.
In a group chat showing solidarity with Israel, which includes WME employees but is not formally affiliated with the company, the news of the hostages’ deaths was discussed after someone shared President Joe Biden’s official statement on the incident. Screenshots of the group chat obtained by The Hollywood Reporter show WME’s Nancy Josephson and Katie Slater commenting on the tragedy of the killings. Joel then responded to the news, texting, “Fuck the left, kill them all.”
A source told THR that Joel deleted the message minutes later.
Joel, a senior partner at WME who also represents Idris Elba, Justin Timberlake and Mahershala Ali, served in Iraq for four years before becoming an agent.
A source told THR that this isn’t the first time Joel has sent a divisive message in the group chat, and that he also shared an earlier message in which Joel said WME had been “weak” on clients who spoke out about the ongoing war in Gaza. “There were clients in every division that should have been fired and we didn’t. This shows we’ve been weak and tolerated abhorrent behavior,” Joel wrote in the text, though it’s unclear which clients he was directly referring to or what behavior he deemed “abhorrent.”
Joel added: “This is all optimistic nonsense. As far as I know, apart from Richard, no one has taken a stand or addressed this chat. Thankfully, there are very few exceptions, but we have not fired anyone. This is disgraceful.”
The bloody and brutal war in Gaza has created a lot of tension in Hollywood, with controversy brewing over those who speak out about the conflict. On October 7, a few weeks after Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking over 200 prisoners, CAA came under fire for comments posted by strongman Maha Dahir on her Instagram. On October 18, Dahir reposted a statement from the account Free Palestine that read, “Now I’m learning who supports genocide.” Dahir added, “That’s the line for me.” He then posted a photo with the caption, “What could be more heartbreaking than witnessing genocide? Witnessing the denial that genocide is happening.”
Mr. Dahil quickly apologized and stayed on at the company, but he was fired by his client Aaron Sorkin over his social media comments and resigned from his role as co-head of CAA’s film division and as an in-house director shortly after the incident. He has since returned to a leadership position at the company.
In November, actress Melissa Barrera, a WME client, was fired from Scream VII after a series of social media posts about the situation in Gaza. “Gaza is currently being treated like a concentration camp,” she wrote in an Instagram Story post. “Everyone is being hunted down, there’s nowhere to go, no electricity, no water… People have learned nothing from our history. And just like in our history, people are still silently watching it all happen. This is genocide and ethnic cleansing.”
It was reported at the time that WME was also considering terminating Barrera’s contract due to her behavior, but in a March interview with THR, Barrera said she always felt supported by her agent. “It was really hard, because I was in a really bad place, but I was very lucky,” she said tearfully, recalling that tumultuous time. “I had a lot of support from the people around me. My team, especially my publicists, had my back.”