Susan Sarandon is said to have doubled down on the antisemitic comments that led to her agents at United Talent Agency dropping her. Meanwhile, UTA continues to represent the leftist writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, who’s supported anti-Israel statements just as offensive or worse than Ms. Sarandon’s.
Puck’s Matt Belloni reports in his “What I’m Hearing” email that when Ms. Sarandon’s two agents from UTA called to inform her that her comments were “hurtful,” the Oscar winner clapped back that, “I had no idea you were Zionists.” On November 21, Ms. Sarandon’s former agency confirmed to the Sun that she had been dropped.
Representatives for the “Blue Beetle” star have not responded to the Sun’s request for comment regarding her latest comments.
The controversy that ultimately prompted the star’s ouster from UTA originated when Ms. Sarandon, who’s long been known for left-wing activism, appeared before an anti-Israel rally on November 17 and stated, “There are a lot of people afraid of being Jewish at this time, and are getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country, so often subjected to violence.”
The actress added, “You don’t have to go through the entire history of that region just show the babies that have been dying in incubators.”
There has been no evidence of babies dying in Gaza in hospital incubators. Israel’s military has, though, released footage of its forces delivering medical supplies, including incubators, to Gaza hospitals.
UTA’s strong response to Ms. Sarandon has not extended to several other clients who have made or supported harsh anti-Israel statements that could be seen as antisemitic, in the wake of the October 7 terrorist attacks.
Among them is one of America’s most decorated writers, Ta-Nehisi Coates, a darling of the left who most famously has advocated for reparations to be paid to Black people. One professor told the New York Times, for a 2017 profile, that Mr. Coates was a “rock star” for his historical analysis, as part of a glowing feature discussing how the writer has become a “public intellectual.”
Mr. Coates signed on to a letter shortly after the October 7 terror attacks that advocated a ‘free Palestine.’ The letter accuses Israel of “executing the largest expulsion of Palestinians since 1948” and conducting “an ethnic cleansing on a scale unseen in decades,” one week after Hamas death squads massacred 1,300 Israelis. The letter notes only that “after sixteen years of siege, Hamas militants broke out of Gaza.”
“This has to end,” Mr. Coates and his coterie write, and “it can only end with a free Palestine.” The letter’s signatories are not listed in alphabetical order, but Mr. Coates is first.
This is not the first time Mr. Coates has sounded this note. In 2008, in the Atlantic, he wrote “The Negro Sings of Zionism,” in which he reasoned that “there’s something distasteful about this whole need for Barack Obama to assure us that he is, indeed, the best friend Israel could ever have.” He wrote then of his exasperation when “people shuffle out the old ‘Israel has the right to defend itself’ number.”
Other top talent agencies, such as William Morris Endeavor and Creative Artists Agency, are also facing difficulty with how to handle clients and staff whose speech, since October 7, has often bordered on antisemitism. The CAA client Raymon Riley, a director who goes by the moniker “Boots,” referred to a screening of the raw footage of the October 7 terror attacks as “murderous propaganda.” The director also has alleged that the Israeli Defense Forces was responsible for perpetrating the October 7 massacre.
“Boots” is still represented by the agency despite one of his lead agents dropping the star, Puck reports. The talent agency recently demoted one of its top agents, Maha Dakhil, after she made offensive anti-Israel comments on social media. The agency opted not to fire the lead agent after her client and star actor, Tom Cruise, interceded with CAA on her behalf.
Instead, Ms. Dakhil has been sent on a “listening tour” of Hollywood’s Jewish community as penance, and CAA has invited the head of the Anti-Defamation League and Rabbi Steven Leder to speak to its employees, despite keeping “Boots” and Mr. Coates on its roster.