Ari Emanuel Opens a Can of Worms… And Eats Them Every Morning

There are tons of eyebrow-raising revelations in Ari Emanuel’s recently released memoir, Roll the Calls. Like how he secretly fed Nikki Finke damaging leaks to help engineer his 2009 takeover of William Morris. Or how he believes Jeffrey Katzenberg helped cover up President Joe Biden’s mental decline. Or how Larry David and Elon Musk nearly came to blows at Emanuel’s 2022 wedding.

But perhaps the most brow-raising disclosure of them all — certainly the most stomach-turning — is that the 65-year-old superagent starts every day by eating worms.

“Upon waking,” Emanuel writes on page 232, describing his personal prescription for a healthy morning ritual, “drink two bottles of mineral water, do 40 minutes of stretching, do 10 minutes of dynamic warm-ups, do a regimen of extremely difficult breath work, then dive into the sauna, then 20 minutes of meditation, then 10 minutes in the ice plunge, then 20 minutes of infrared light therapy, then a protein shake with coffee and vitamins, topped off with a cup of live worms.”

To be fair, Emanuel isn’t the only Hollywood luminary with odd dietary habits. Shailene Woodley eats clay as part of a detox regime. Heidi Montag has talked about chowing down on raw bison testicles to boost her fertility. A slew of others — Kim and Kourtney Kardashian, January Jones, Mandy Moore — have swallowed placenta pills (made from their own freeze-dried placentas) to help with postpartum depression and hormone balancing.

But worms?

Ingesting helminths — the tiny parasites Emanuel, who until recently was famously vegan, slurps down every morning to “eat the bad bacteria in my gut” — is an unusual practice even in the far-out fringes of the biohacking scene. In fact, most alt-med-minded celebs are doing the opposite. Heidi Klum and husband Tom Kaulitz recently underwent a months-long “worm and parasite cleanse” to flush out their guts. According to Sarah Mirkin, a Beverly Hills and Palm Beach dietitian and nutritionist with 25 years of experience, that’s probably a saner approach.

“Parasitic worms infect hundreds of millions worldwide, and most people are trying to get rid of them,” she says. “And then there are a handful of wealthy people who are paying to host them. It’s very dangerous. And disgusting.”

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This story appeared in the Oct. 7 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.