November
6 Today's forecast: Todd Shemarya gets more attention than he ever deserved

Todd Shemarya, of Todd Shemarya Artists, was socked with a sexual harassment lawsuit in LA Superior Court by a former assistant who claims that he barraged her with "racist and sexist slurs, pornographic emails, thefts and drug use after persuading her to abandon her previous career with empty promises of becoming a talent agent, then he fired her by email." Rotten stuff, but one question: Who the hell is Todd Shemarya?

Karina Brown at Courthouse News Service, which picked up the suit, describes him as "a high-profile Hollywood talent agent" who "represents Hollywood heavyweights such as Brad Pitt, Matthew McConaughey, Angelina Jolie, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Natalie Portman, the complaint states." The complaint can say whatever it likes, of course, but why did the New York Post, WENN, and a host of other sites around the world swallow the release whole without even bothering to taste it? "One of Hollywood's biggest agents," breathes Hollyscoop.

Full disclosure: I had never heard of Todd Shemarya before this morning. And while I no longer cover the agency beat, some quick double-checking confirms that Pitt, McConaughey and Portman are still represented by CAA. DiCaprio is still represented by Rick Yorn. Jolie by Geyer Kosinski. And so on and so forth.

So who the hell is Todd Shemarya? Well, there's a 2001 article that says he's a former modeling agent who designed a clothing line with Pitt. In 2007, the New York Times mentioned Shemarya as the "brand agent" of Rachel Zoe and, yes, Pitt, Jolie and Jennifer Aniston. What's a brand agent? “What I do,” Shemarya told the NYT, “is to take an entity, whether it be a celebrity or a stylist, and enlarge their profile. I take whatever anyone’s best assets are and then I apply those in a business situation.” In other words, Todd Shemarya Artists handles their endorsements. Most recently, he brokered the deals for the Brangelina and McConaughey baby pictures.

So, Shemarya may well be one of Hollywood's biggest endorsement agents. But that's not really the same thing, is it?

Look, I'm a (business) gossip whore, too. In the rapid-fire world of blogger aggregation, I'm the last one to point fingers at anyone who moves too quickly and gets it wrong. Nonetheless, I still can't believe that everyone saw the names "Brad Pitt" and "Todd 'Who?' Shemarya" together and didn't blink before proclaiming that "Hollywood's biggest agent!" was linked with a whole bunch of henious accusations (including my favorite, "harassed her by arranging that the only office bathroom lacked a door during her entire 6 years on the job."). But is "one of Hollywood's biggest agents" going to work out of a residential address between Beechwood and Gower? That makes him, at best, E, not Ari Gold.   

Right now, all of the assistants for those stars' actual agents have my deepest sympathies, because today is gonna suck. [CNS]