News broke in late December that Oprah Winfrey quit her longtime agency CAA. Today, Deadline.com is reporting that she has signed with its rival WME, where her career will be handled by a team of agents led by Ari Emanuel and Rick Rosen.
Emanuel, the brother of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, was also the inspiration for the high strung Hollywood agent Ari Gold in HBO’s “Entourage,” played by Jeremy Piven.
Oprah’s signing comes on the heels of her cable network OWN scoring 3.2 million viewers for her Lance Armstrong interview.
According to Deadline, “Winfrey had been a very important client for CAA. Among other things, the agency put together her deal with Discovery Communications for OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network. But Oprah isn’t an easy client by any means.”
(Photo: AP)
