Who is Ari Emanuel?
How one of Hollywood’s top executives became the subject of Ye fka Kanye West’s recent post captioned “LOVE SPEECH”
On Wednesday October 26th, many social media users were surprised when Ye made his way back onto Instagram. Rumors that he had been permanently banned were put to rest as he jumped back on the timeline with 3 consecutive posts, 2 deleted within minutes.
One post Ye chose to keep live on his timeline, surprisingly still live 15 hours later, is a post where Ye addresses Ari Emanuel in his signature caps lock writing style.
The comments of the posts flooded with Ye fans asking “Who is Ari?”
Ari Emanuel is an influential player in the entertainment industry, CEO of William Morris Endeavor, the entertainment and media agency that owns UFC. The character “Ari Gold” from the hit show Entourage was inspired by him.
On October 19th, Ari Emanuel published an op-ed in the Financial Times calling all businesses to stop working with Ye after his anti-semitic comments.
“Some of West’s behavior has been dismissed over time, citing mental illness, given that he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after being hospitalized in 2016. However, mental illness is not an excuse or racism, hatred or anti-Semitism.”
“Those who continue to do business with West are giving his misguided hate an audience. Silence and inaction are not an option.”
Ari has many A-list clients including LeBron James and Maverick Carter who recently canceled an episode of James’s YouTube talk show The Shop: Uninterrupted with Ye as a guest. On October 12th, Maverick Carter posted a statement on Instagram to announce they were pulling the episode and stated “he used The Shop to reiterate more hate speech and extremely dangerous stereotypes.”
Larry David, creator of Seinfeld, officiated Ari Emanuel’s wedding in St. Tropez this past May with tons of other celebrities in attendance.
Jess Seinfeld, Jerry Seinfeld’s wife, started the Change.Org petition that garnered over 180,000 signatures to get Ye dropped from Adidas. She also created the Instagram black square shared by millions of social media users stating, “I support my Jewish friends and the Jewish people.”
This square went viral shared by almost every big named celebrity including Amy Schumer, Chelsea Handler, Hailey Bieber and more.
Ari Emanuel married fashion designer Sarah Staudinger, owner of fashion label STAUD in May 2022. On October 27th, the New York Times published an article calling her the “New Queen of Los Angeles,” linking her with celebrities Kendall Jenner and Hailey Bieber who have carried her handbags.
According to Wikipedia, Ari has a controversial past himself, being accused of racist and anti-gay comments in 2002. He ended up settling the suit for $2.25 million.
Ari was accused of racist comments and anti-gay speech in 2002 but endeded up going to court and settling for $2.25 million dollars and has continued to grow his business and his wealth despite his mistakes.
Meanwhile, Ari was speaking out the loudest against Ye, encouraging people to stop doing business with him and putting pressure on brands associated with him to drop him, costing Ye $2 billion dollars in one day (according to Ye’s post).
Elon Musk also has a relationship with Ari. This summer a shirtless meme of Elon Musk vacationing in Greece went viral. Spraying him off with a hose was Ari Emanuel.
Elon who also has a close relationship to Ye, tweeted on October 10th:
Diddy was also a notable guest in attendance at Ari’s wedding in May. Diddy signed with WME in June 2021.
Coincidentally, Ye’s text exchange with Diddy which Ye posted publicly on Instagram on October 7th, is what got Ye temporarily banned from the platform. Ye calls Diddy a “fed” and says “Ima use you as an example to show the Jewish people that told you to call me that no one can threaten or influence me.” He also posted the caption “Jesus is Jew.” This is the first anti-semitic comment Ye makes publicly.
Instagram restricted Ye’s account after this anti-Jewish post. According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, claiming Diddy was controlled by Jewish people, is a reference to a long-standing anti-semitic conspiracy theory.
Ye was banned from Instagram after this statement and that’s when he took to Twitter to make two more tweets, “who do you think created cancel culture” and the infamous “Deathcon3” tweet which got his account immediately suspended. Ye appeared on Piers Morgan and Lex Fridman and apologized to the Jewish community for his comments. The media did not report the apologies Ye made until after Adidas and other companies dropped him.
The post Ye made on October 26th to Ari is still live on his Instagram with 18.3 million followers. Will Ari respond to Ye’s LOVE SPEECH or continue urging businesses to stop working with him?
