Ari Emanuel on his New Memoir, ‘Ragent’ Reputation, and Changing Hollywood

Kara Swisher (0:00)

Ari was very sweet to me, and he gave me a hat as I got in here. And it says, rage, which I thought was very cute.

And the note said, I'll just read it really quickly for you. Oh, I can't find it. He basically said, thank you so much for doing this, and if it doesn't go well, fuck you.

Hi, everyone from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is On with Kara Swisher and I'm Kara Swisher. My guest today is Ari Emanuel, Executive Chair and CEO of TKO and the Executive Chairman of the WME Group. We spoke in front of a live audience during an event hosted by Live Talks Los Angeles. His long history in Hollywood includes co-founding the talent agency Endeavor, then merging it with the William Morris Agency to create one of the largest talent representation firms in the country. He brought WWE and UFC together with his sports enterprise TKO and also founded the live events company, Mari. His new memoir, Roll the Calls, is out now and actually it's about his agenting. He calls himself a ragent. Of course, you know him from the show Entourage, Ari Gold, but it's not the same and actually it's a really gripping and interesting book that is, I think, unintended quite painfully talking about himself.

It's worth a read. Our expert question today comes from his famous brothers, Ram and Zeke Emanuel. Ram is a former mayor of Chicago and served as a White House Chief of Staff under President Obama. He was also the ambassador to Japan. Zeke is an oncologist, bioethicist, and health policy expert at University of Pennsylvania and served as a senior policy advisor in the Obama administration. Most importantly, they are his brothers. It's quite a trio and Ari is my least favorite Emanuel, as I like to tell them. So stick around.

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Kara Swisher (3:52)

Ari, thanks for coming on on.

Ari Emanuel (3:54)

Thank you.

Kara Swisher (3:59)

We're going to start with all the fields at this top, but we're not going to be talking about the following, if you don't mind. We're not talking about Ari Gold.

Ari Emanuel (4:07)

Okay.

Kara Swisher (4:07)

I don't give a fuck about him. Eating worms in your demented health regimen, which is just a way-

Ari Emanuel (4:13)

You don't give a fuck about that.

SPEAKER_4 (4:14)

I don't at all. I don't care when you die.

Kara Swisher (4:16)

Your manic travel schedule.

Ari Emanuel (4:18)

Don't give a fuck about that.

Kara Swisher (4:19)

I don't. The porn scene in The Departed. I'm sorry if you're here to hear about that, but we're not going to do that. But the first line of your memoir is a Raoul Walsh quote. He's a director about work. In fact, how important it is and doing the work, which is what I think this book is actually about. I think this is a work drama more than anything else that you've done here about power, and who has it, and who doesn't, and how to get it essentially.