Inside Hollywood’s Publicist Meltdown

Hollywood publicists are used to battling bad press — just not about themselves. But last fall, as billboards across Los Angeles implored stars to “Thank Your Publicist,” the people who usually craft the messages suddenly became the message. Crisis teams were hiring crisis teams. Defections were becoming a weekly storyline. Lawsuits began piling up. And chatter inside every firm circled back to an uneasy theme: An industry that once ran on relationships and discretion was now seemingly going to war with itself.

“I haven’t seen so much upheaval since the late ’90s,” says one longtime rep, referring to the last great agency shake-up, when mergers and talent defections roiled the industry. “But back then there was an abundance of money. Now there’s a shortage, and people are scrambling to survive.” One now-retired studio publicist describes the current PR climate with even more Dickensian bleakness: “It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times.”

Layoffs have become the backdrop for everything. The math is particularly grim for flacks. “You can make a movie or a TV show without a publicist,” says the former CEO of a large firm. “But it’s hard to be a publicist with nothing to publicize. So, in that sense, the publicist is the least crucial person in the mix.” With fewer scripted shows, skimpier awards campaigns and tighter budgets, the rhythms that once defined the job have evaporated. Several reps interviewed for this story — all of whom requested not to be named — lamented the loss of the deliverables that kept clients feeling tended to. 

Then there are the lawsuits — the one subject every publicist insists they’re tired of discussing, while discussing it anyway. The MPRM versus 42West battle is getting particularly ugly. Last September, MPRM co-founder Mark Pogachefsky filed suit against 42West, Sylvia Desrochers, Caitlin McGee and five other reps who defected to the rival firm, saying they allegedly took clients AURA, Disney, Nat Geo and others with them. Per a source, their departure was “especially shitty” since Pogachefsky was planning his retirement and had signed an Option to Purchase agreement with McGee and Desrochers. 42West hit back before Thanksgiving, reportedly alleging that the MPRM suit is factually unsupported but that Pogachefsky created a “toxic work environment” and spent MPRM’s “diminishing cash reserves” on “his lavish lifestyle.”

Meanwhile, last year, R&CPMK accused former executive Mark Owens of soliciting colleagues and poaching clients to start 2PM Sharp. And, of course, there was the Justin Baldoni-Blake Lively debacle, which has spawned its own hydra of actions: Stephanie Jones of Jonesworks suing Jennifer Abel, Melissa Nathan, Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios for poaching clients, stealing trade secrets and orchestrating a smear campaign against her; Baldoni and Wayfarer suing publicist Leslie Sloane (a New York judge dismissed the case in June); and Lively suing Nathan and Abel.

“There’s not a single publicist in Hollywood who isn’t sick of talking about those lawsuits,” one rep says. Adds another, “You have to wonder why some people don’t take the advice they give their clients and shut up.”

Companies, in the meantime, are breaking apart, merging, or reemerging in new forms. The dissolution of R&CPMK and the resurrection of PMK Entertainment allows Cindi Berger and new president Alan Nierob to work once again under the storied PMK banner, this time under the new ownership of Acceleration Community of Companies, Michael Nyman’s boutique holding outfit housing a portfolio of PR and marketing agencies. Last spring, Stephen Huvane, Simon Halls, Robin Baum and Andy Gelb dissolved Slate PR to launch their new outfit, Apex, while Ina Treciokas left to start Ingenuity Group. The churn at ID PR was just as busy: In 2023, Lindsay Krug and Rachel Karten departed to form Origin Public Relations; not long after, Jillian Roscoe left to start Birch Public Relations; and a few months later, another ID PR rep, Alla Plotkin, left to join her.

After the pandemic years, the appeal of working 24/7 inside a large firm with giant overheads has dimmed, especially when the personal upside isn’t proportional to the grind. And younger publicists, having weathered so many cycles of disruption, have grown accustomed to relying on their own reputations. “Our business identity has changed,” says one rep who left a large company to start their own. “Ten years ago, you wanted to be at the biggest and the best. I don’t think people are as defined by that anymore, people [want to be] defined by their work, their creativity.”

For many independent shop owners, the chaos has brought a steady stream of acquisition offers from larger firms — offers they’re declining. “I have friends who sold their agencies years ago,” says a movie-campaign rep. “I asked them what it was like. He said, ‘It’s like having been out on your own, having to give up your apartment and go live with your parents and sleep on their couch.’ Okay, not for me.”

Still, no one pretends to know where any of this is heading. And the situation has grown so dire, a gallows humor seems to have settled in among PR practitioners. Those “Thank your publicists” billboards that started popping up in the fall, for instance? Those were originally intended as a semi-tongue-in-cheek message to the industry from flaks who felt squeezed by shrinking fees and rising demands. Now, they seem less like an inside joke and more like an early distress flare.

“The only thing I can guarantee as a fact is that nobody knows nothing,” says an industry veteran. “What are publicists going to do? What are screenwriters going to do? How will the unions protect writers and actors? There’s uncertainty at every level in the business.”

As the retired studio publicist puts it, “The job is changing exponentially. People are trying to evolve, and the dinosaurs are going to die.”

This story appeared in the Dec. 3 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.