Several high-profile artists have spoken out against the Wasserman Agency this week, following CEO Casey Wasserman’s appearance in a new tranche of Epstein files.
In an open letter last week, Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino led the charge by asking the talent agency to remove her band’s name from its website, calling on Wasserman to step down. Other artists, like Chappell Roan, Weyes Blood, and North Carolina bands Sylvan Esso and Wednesday, have taken a stronger stance and cut ties entirely with the prominent agency.
The artist departures come amid growing national outrage over the horrifying abuse and breadth of Epstein’s circle revealed by the files, as well as frustration that powerful figures complicit in the crimes are not being held to account.
“Continuing to be represented by a company led by and named after Casey Wasserman goes against our values and cannot continue,” Wednesday, an Asheville indie-rock group, wrote in a statement posted to Instagram. “For the sake of his staff we hope that he steps down from the company and it is rebranded.”
The newest files, released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on January 30, comprise 3 million documents related to Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. Under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, signed into law on November 19, 2025, 6 million unclassified case documents were required to be released within 30 days. The DOJ has been heavily criticized for the partial release and delayed timeline, as well as redactions that shield the names of potential perpetrators but not of victims.
Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking in 2021, appeared before the House Oversight Committee for a deposition on February 9 but refused to answer questions.
Wasserman appears in the file in an intimate email exchange with Maxwell in 2003, a year after federal prosecutors say Epstein began verifiably abusing young girls. At the time of the emails, Maxwell had been closely linked to Epstein since 1991, and Wasserman was married with a young family. In the exchange, Maxwell offers the entertainment mogul a massage that would “drive a man wild”; in another, Wasserman writes: “I think of you all the time. So, what do I have to do to see you in a tight leather outfit?””
“I deeply regret my correspondence with Ghislaine Maxwell, which took place over two decades ago, long before her horrific crimes came to light,” Wasserman said in a statement. He has not been accused of wrongdoing by authorities.
Sylvan Esso and Wednesday represent a handful drawing a line in the sand and saying regret is not enough
Sylvano Esso’s Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn, who have earned a reputation for taking a strong stance on industry issues like Spotify, posted in a February 11 Instagram story that Wasserman’s ties to Maxwell are “so reprehensible that we can no longer allow our work to have any association with him or his name.”
“We don’t know yet where we’ll be next,” the Instagram story concluded, “but it will not be anywhere he is.”
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