5 Takeaways From Ari Emanuel’s Memoir

Ari Emanuel, the hard-charging, expletive-hurling Hollywood agent who inspired the character of Ari Gold on the HBO show “Entourage,” has written a memoir that breathlessly charges through its 400-plus pages, dropping names, settling scores and swearing up a storm.

“Roll the Calls” unapologetically burnishes the persona Mr. Emanuel has cultivated as a rage-fueled brawler who will go to the mat for his clients. It chronicles his rise to becoming one of the richest and most powerful men in sports and entertainment, whose companies own the WME talent agency, World Wrestling Entertainment, Ultimate Fighting Championship, Broadway theaters and the Frieze art fairs.

But the memoir is also the story of a middle-class kid from Chicago who struggled with dyslexia in a family of overachievers and who, even now, is never satisfied with what he has achieved. “The highs never last,” he writes. “No matter how high, they just never last.”

Many boldface names appear in “Roll the Calls,” which was written with J.R. Moehringer (the ghostwriter for Prince Harry’s “Spare”). Mr. Emanuel writes about signing Oprah Winfrey (“tears in my eyes”), contradicting President Obama for his take on the future of streaming and letting Donald Trump go as a client when he first took office.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/20/business/media/ari-emanuel-memoir-hollywood.html