EXCLUSIVE… UPDATE:Alette Valiencourt fired her entire management team and CAA this week after a ten-year stint together. Alette met with her team including, manager Noureen Weld, publicist Lucas Dorner and agent Mark Allendale, and after what was described to me as a "very quick, very tense" meeting, left with none of them still on the payroll. Sources say 
that Lucas Dorner's latest PR plan was perhaps the catalyst. From what sources claim, Valiencourt still retains her regular legal team. Another exclusive source says that unsurprisingly, WME's Ari Emanuel has already been very hands-on in pursuing Valiencourt for his own agency, which could be a "huge win" for WME. She is currently promoting The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby and is set to star in Andrew Dominik's Marilyn Monroe biopic, Blonde. An insider told me "Lucas Dorner is a very talented publicist who basically rebuilt Letty's career after her three-year hiatus, but he doesn't know what his boundaries are and Letty is definitely not someone who will take that kind of thing lying down. She does not appreciate people acting more familiar with her than they really are. Lucas was her employee and he behaved inexcusably, and that's just not how someone of Letty's caliber works in this business. She's always been the one calling the shots and she wasn't about to let that fall by the wayside for the sake of good PR."
The first tip came in earlier this week when a source told me that Alette and her management team were butting heads and that she had just had a very intense meeting with Noureen Weld presumably to make sure they were still on the same page in terms of her career. Other sources are claiming that Alette has been hungry for an image revamp for some time now and that Dorner and Allendale were not interested in changing up any kind of publicity plan. CAA is at a complete loss with this and presumably can't figure out why Dorner and Valiencourt were allowed to butt heads so thoroughly as to warrant his firing in tandem with CAA's firing via Allendale and Weld. A final source stated that Weld is campaigning hard to be taken back into the fold, agreeing to damn well whatever Alette may want in her new ventures. Valiencourt released a statement this morning saying that she "...wishes everyone at CAA the very best" and "look[s] forward to this new exciting chapter in her career."”
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Saw her and Ari Emanuel having lunch at The Grove yesterday. Right out in the open too, and I remember thinking, "yikes, isn't she with CAA?" And today there's this breaking news. Suddenly everything makes sense.
Apparently Ari sent out fruit baskets to everyone Letty fired. No idea if that's actually true but hell, I believe it. Sounds like pure Ari.
JThis is HUGE though, this isn't just WME poaching her away from CAA. It's not just an agency switch. She fired her WHOLE TEAM, the same team she'd maintained for years. Can anyone remember the last time an actor this high profile did something like this?!
That's what's striking me the most about this. How badly does your entire representation team have to fuck up in your eyes that you fire EVERYONE? Because this has to be because of a single incident and it has to be premeditated, to issue a statement that you're firing everyone in paragraph 1 and by paragraph 2 be talking about how happy you are to sign with a rival agency.
I'm shocked that she's done this because they've done a GREAT job with her career since she's started working again. Stealing scenes in Black Swan, notable roles in two of the biggest franchises in recent memory with Batman and The Hunger Games, and now back in the awards race again with The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, just got cast as Marilyn Monroe etc etc
She has a prior working relationship with Theo Shiel, her TDKR role was facilitated by CLocke's relationship with Nolan, and Eleanor Rigby was tailored for her and has been a passion project that's been years in the making. They really weren't getting her nearly the level of work her talent deserves. Noureen means well, but she's never managed to fight too and nail for Letty where it counts. I can see how the brasher WME approach would be appealing.
It could be because they royally screwed the pooch, or because CLocke is at WME and this is easier for micromanaging that fauxmance in order to get maximum exposure.
You think she fired her agent, manager AND publicist because of a boyfriend she won't even admit to being in a relationship with? There's wild speculation and then there's just stupid.
Like she hasn't dropped everything for a man before? She didn't work for three years when she was married.
I don't understand this insistence that this is a showmance. They were together before Sherlock became a thing when he was just quietly doing stage work in London. Like we're talking way more of a non-entity than Justin Theroux was when the Aniston stories started up. He wasn't going to generate any kind of positive exposure for her.
They were "together" in the same way that a fag hag is together with her sassy gay friend. I can't believe people actually think that "relationship" is real. .
Oh my God I'm so sick of hearing about how he's clearly gay and she's his beard. IT LITERALLY MAKES NO SENSE CONSIDERING THE TIMELINE OF THEIR HISTORY TOGETHER.
Except the point was never to generate positive exposure based on his name recognition, this whole coy "we don't talk about our relationship even if we encourage you to take photos of us" thing is clearly the talking point by itself, and it worked perfectly. She's seen as desirable and elusive, it's a winning situation. She didn't need a star to keep up the ruse, she needed someone who'd play along with that arrangement. Why else would they have fallen apart when his career blew up?
Except they're clearly back together.
I think it'd definitely be interesting to see who she picks up as her new manager and publicist. Ten bucks that Ari is drawing up a pre-approved list of people for her to choose from right now...
Take a break, Ned.
It really can't be a coincidence that this happened so quickly and abruptly, not that long after Clarence Locke's Bryan Singer fiasco.
Well, her team has always disapproved of the relationship. They see him as a liability, and she won't hear a word said against him. How else was she going to react if they give her an ultimatum between them and him? They overestimated her reliance on them and underestimated how important a presence he was in her life.
You've come to the wrong place if you just wanted to share fanfiction plot summaries, dearie.
"Bryan Singer fiasco" LOL seriously? Give me a break. That was so orchestrated. Do people really believe that CLocke doesn't play the PR game just because he has no publicist? Newsflash: he was signed with Endeavor long before it became WME, Amanda McIntyre has done incredible things for his career over the years, and there was never a question of his getting dropped from their roster even when he was actively committing career suicide post-The Prestige - and you don't get to enjoy that kind of security by being a naive Bambi-eyed woodland creature with no brain-mouth filter. WME has definitely signed off on letting him shake things up like a wild card because it feeds into the image they want, the impression that they're the freewheeling and risk-taking alternative to how buttoned-up and old-fashioned CAA is. You better believe that Ari "CAAN'T" Emanuel is completely on board with the antics of Mr. British Prestige Actor Who Tells It like It Is about the Dark Underbelly of Hollywood, and you better believe CLocke has more Machiavellian tricks up his sleeve than most people would like to believe. This has his fingerprints all over it and he's the one Ari should be sending a fruit basket to. Being able to snag Alette is a HUGE coup in so many ways. She gets to thoroughly rebrand herself, they have a much easier time in enacting their media plans in how they face the press, and they've got a movie together that's hitting theaters this fall. Perfect press opportunity. It's win-win-win-win-win.
I can't wait to see WME take her career to the next level! This kind of a high-profile signing from right under CAA's nose? They'll treat her like an absolute queen. Oscar #3!!!
Agreed. I really had high hopes for her career but she got so derailed when she was married and now she's playing catch-up to people like Cate Blanchett, and it's just such a shame. But I hope she gets back on track soon and starts turning out more of the amazing work everyone knows she can do.
Her publicist was one of the best young guys in the game. He must have been blindsided as hell, to let this spiral out in this embarrassing way.
WME NEEDS TO ELEVATE THIS BOSS ASS BITCH.
Seems ONTD found this link...