A week before Meghan Markle is scheduled to launch her highly anticipated Netflix lifestyle show, “With Love, Meghan,” a new report offers conflicting views about whether she has been dropped by WME, the powerhouse Hollywood talent agency that’s also helping Blake Lively navigate her Justin Baldoni scandal.
Page Six cites “multiple” sources who say that WME, lead by Hollywood titan Ari Emanuel, is no longer working with the Duchess of Sussex, with one “industry insider” saying that the agency found her too “difficult” to work with.
But Page Six also quoted a WME spokesperson who insists, “WME continues to represent Meghan and Archewell.” The spokesperson is referring to the production company that Montecito-based Meghan and Prince Harry established to manage their media projects.
Indeed, Page Six reported that other sources said that WME continues to work on Archewell projects. Then again, sources also told Page Six that Meghan hasn’t enjoyed any personal meetings with Emanuel in a while. Meghan’s reported lack of personal time with one of the most powerful people in Hollywood led to her having “an outburst” in January 2024, when she demanded a meeting and expected “decks and plans,” either for Archewell or for her own personal business ventures.
That outburst prompted “a dispute,” and “Ari was done with her,” an insider told Page Six. This incident was confirmed by a second source.
Whether or not Meghan is still repped by WME, she has been furiously using her new Instagram account to promote her show and to attempt to address a flurry of reports about trademark problems with her lifestyle brand, which she recently renamed As Ever.
The former TV actor also is facing accusations that she stole the name and logo for As Ever from other businesses and entities, while the Daily Beast reported last week that her line of jam and other lifestyle products, formerly marketed under the abandoned American Riviera Orchard name, probably won’t be ready for sale until several months after the launch of her show, “With Meghan.”
Meanwhile, Emanuel, CEO of WME, also known as Endeavor, has been busy becoming a billionaire, due to his company’s majority stake in the pro wrestling promotions company WWE. Emanuel’s clout in Hollywood also comes from the fact that his agency represents some of the biggest stars in entertainment, including Robert Downey Jr., Angelina Jolie, Ben Affleck, Hayward native Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Christopher Nolan, as well as Lively and her husband, “Deadpool” star Ryan Reynolds.
With regard to Lively, Emanuel has been busy defending her amid her legal and reputational battle with Baldoni, her “It Ends With Us” director and co-star.
During a live interview last week on Freakonomics Radio, Emanuel said he’s “ride or die” with Lively, according to the Hollywood Reporter. “It is a (expletive) up, bad situation with what Bologna … Baldoni … whatever his name is … is doing,” said Emanuel.
As it happened, Emanuel’s agency also represented Baldoni. That is, until the New York Times published a viral investigative report in December that purported to tell the inside story of how Baldoni allegedly subjected Lively to sexually inappropriate behavior during the film’s production and subsequently oversaw a media “smear” campaign to retaliate against her coming forward about her alleged claims.
“I fired him,” Emanuel said. Baldoni has filed a lawsuit, countering Lively’s lawsuit, denying her sexual harassment claims and alleging that she and her husband seized control of his movie and sought to defame him and destroy his reputation with the New York Times story.
“I’ve known Ryan and Blake for over a decade,” Emanuel said. “They’re really incredible people. In Hollywood, they have been incredibly successful. People work with them, they’ve never had any bad mojo out there or treated people badly.”
If Meghan is still Emanuel’s client, it’s easy to imagine that she’d love it if he mounted a similarly passionate defense for her, especially after she’s been the subject of scathing reports over the past year in the Hollywood Reporter, Vanity Fair and the Daily Beast, which cite interviews with current and former employees who say she’s not only “difficult” to work with but that she engages in bullying, “Mean Girls” behavior that have left subordinates in tears or in need of long-time therapy.