Key points
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Jeremy Piven and Adrien Grenier reunited for a gambling ad that echoed their Entourage dynamic.
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Entourage creator Doug Ellin slammed the ad, calling it “trash and theft”: “I wanna throw up.”
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He added, “It’s just embarrassing.”
Two of Entourage‘s stars reunited for a commercial — and the show’s creator wants nothing to do with it.
Jeremy Piven and Adrian Grenier reteamed to advertise Jake Paul’s online gambling app Betr in a glossy ad echoing their dynamic on Entourage. Doug Ellin, the creator and executive producer of the HBO show, shared his distaste for the ad in a series of social media posts.
“I have zero positivity in watching things I busted my ass [off] on for years [be] turned into garbage,” he wrote on X. “This is trash and theft. Period.”
Ellin also blasted the “God-awful commercial” in a video he posted on Instagram on Tuesday.
“I know there’s a lot of people out there who like to criticize us and tell us we weren’t great — we were, this wasn’t,” he said as he compared the quality of Entourage to that of the commercial. “It’s just embarrassing. A lot of times, people know, in Hollywood don’t give the writer the credit they deserve. And I’m not talking about me, I’m talking about all the people that worked on the show.”
Ellin also seemed to take credit for Grenier and Piven’s career success, and accused the latter actor of trying to distance himself from the series after its conclusion. “We found these people. We cast these people,” he said. “I actually had to beg Piven to do the show, ’cause he didn’t wanna do it. And he didn’t wanna talk about it afterwards, like he wanted to get away from it ’cause he had so much better s— going on.”
The screenwriter reiterated his dismay. “I watch it and I wanna throw up,” he said of the commercial. “Because I would suffer, along with many other people, over every syllable [of the show]. Every f—in’ word. So I watch this trash, this s—, and go, ‘Ugh.’ There’s no bitterness. I want everyone to get paid, get rich. Just f—in’ do your own s—.”
Ellin shared similar sentiments in the caption of the video. “Many people worked really hard to make our show as good as it was,” he wrote. “When I see cheap, s—ty imitations that try to pass for what we did it makes me puke 🤮. Guess I’m stupid like that. Agree?”
A spokesperson for Betr responded to Ellin’s criticism in a statement to Entertainment Weekly, saying in part, “We had a lot of fun making it, they had a lot of fun making it, and people seem to be having a lot of fun watching it. We appreciate Doug watching the ad and helping promote it.”
EW has reached out to representatives for Grenier and Piven for comment.
The ad in question sees Piven, seemingly playing himself, at a party, where he listens to Paul pitch Betr, and he subsequently bumps into Grenier and convinces him to become a spokesperson for the app. “I got your two superstar faces for your superstar app,” Piven tells Paul at the end of the ad. “We’re in, baby. You’re gonna have to pay us.”
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Ellin also thought that the quality of the ad speaks for itself. “I think it’s pretty damn obvious I didn’t write it,” he wrote on X. “My god.”
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
