In Leaked Audio, Hollywood Fixer Tells Billionaire Client of Plan to Smear Fiancée (Listen)

New audio recordings obtained by The Hollywood Reporter provide a rare unvarnished view of modern crisis PR, explaining from the inside both how and why covert campaigns have been pursued across the entertainment industry and beyond in recent years amid myriad high-stakes feuds. The likes of Justin Baldoni, Andrew Huberman, Scooter Braun and Travis Scott have been caught up in revelations about the practice.

The recordings are a series of voice memos made by Jed Wallace, a digital fixer, and shared with his partners at the communications firm TAG PR, as well as a client, Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio. He’s heir to the Milan-based EssilorLuxottica, the world’s largest eyewear company. Its brands include Ray-Ban, Oliver Peoples and Persol. Forbes lists his net worth at $5.5 billion.

Leaked audio #1: Wallace assures Del Vecchio that he understands “exactly what you’re going through.”

Leaked audio #2: Wallace says of Serfaty: “wow is it going to get fucking nasty for this girl.”

TAG PR’s head Melissa Nathan was recently accused in a civil lawsuit of committing perjury about her links to smear sites. She’s denied involvement.

Neither Wallace, Nathan nor Del Vecchio responded to THR’s inquiries.

Wallace has faced multiple lawsuits over his work, including from Blake Lively during her legal fight with Baldoni. In court, she claimed he “weaponized a digital army” to “create, seed, manipulate, and advance disparaging content that appeared to be authentic on social media platforms and internet chat forums” by “executing confidential and ‘untraceable’ campaigns.” (He later unsuccessfully sued Lively for defamation.) His own lawyer has described his operation as a “crisis mitigation firm engaged by clients to help navigate real-life human crisis, threats, trauma and mental health concerns,” contending that it “helps primarily families and individuals when they find themselves unjustly attacked, extorted, doxed, swatted, scammed or need help navigating through the most frightening situations.”

Aside from Baldoni, Wallace’s other clients have included actress Rebel Wilson, who is now embroiled in her own defamation litigation with Amanda Ghost, a producer on her film The Deb. THR previously published leaked audio of Wallace instructing the top Hollywood publicist Melissa Nathan to assert without evidence that Ghost is a “madame.” He explained on that recording: “We can’t just do, like, oh, she’s a bitch, she sucks,” Wallace says in the recording. “It’s, like, it’s got to be really, really heavy and connected to something that heavy.” (Wilson has denied involvement in the smear campaign against Ghost, although new evidence submitted in the case seems to depict her communicating with Nathan about the site.)

The recordings appear to show Wallace speaking to Del Vecchio in August 2024, a month after the billionaire’s then-fiancée Jessica Serfaty, a model and actress who had a run for several years on Days of Our Lives, publicly accused him of abuse and then quickly retracted the claim. That same August, Los Angeles law enforcement reportedly investigated a hidden tracking device placed in Serfaty’s Range Rover.

The prominent Hollywood attorney Bryan Freedman, another figure who’s been accused of a key role in the smear site scandal, has described Wallace, with whom he’s long collaborated, as a well-resourced operator. In one voice memo, Wallace discusses the tracking device incident, stating he’ll “call my guy who’s a detective over at the L.A. Sheriff’s” department to assess the situation. He also asserts, “we know they didn’t find an AirTag, my guys were there,” apparently referring to his relationship with sheriff’s deputies.

The audio messages appear to depict Wallace explaining his digital process, which involves pairing an anonymous smear site with search engine optimization techniques to boost it. “It is an exquisite thing that’s not just about creating this fake fucking bullshit story for her, this is about creating a lifetime of understanding so when people see stories about her, they know she’s a fucking hooker, liar and a prostitute,” he says. “That’s the point.”

The smearing site about Serfaty went live on August 15, 2024. It’s since been taken down. Serfaty didn’t respond to THR.

On the audio, Wallace seems to provide context on the broader technical implementation of the plan, detailing how he pays for advertising to drive search traffic “back to our site, which is awesome.” He also shares how other, related online work is already yielding results against Serfaty, exulting: “wow, is it going to get fucking nasty for this girl.”

Elsewhere in the recordings, Wallace — who notes, as professional qualification, “I’ve dealt with global leaders who were accused of rape” — asserts that exculpatory evidence or even a recantation doesn’t matter in the court of public opinion. “Nobody [gives] a fuck, because people want the tragedy.” Which is why, he explains, “we have to build a credible story that establishes [Serfaty] as a liar.”

Part of Wallace’s job is ego management. In one recording, he tells Del Vecchio that his client list includes “world leaders, celebrities, diplomats, high-profile individuals” — “I have to pick and choose who the fuck I work with.” He assures Del Vecchio that he understands “exactly what you’re going through,” listing off the pressures of “legacy, family, your father’s name… your entire world. I get it.” Wallace explains that Del Vecchio’s problem is “our priority” and “we know what we’re doing,” signing off with: “You are loved, my brother.”

This year, Italian prosecutors have been pursuing a case against Del Vecchio as part of a larger investigation into a private intelligence firm called Equalize, which has been accused of criminal hacking its founders deny. Prosecutors allege Del Vecchio commissioned unauthorized background checks against Serfaty as well as other Del Vecchio family members amid an ongoing inheritance dispute. He’s denied wrongdoing and claimed he was unaware of any illegal methods used by the agency, which itself has contended it didn’t work for him.