The Biggest ‘Entourage’ Controversies On & Off Screen

In the 2000s, the HBO comedy Entourage was living large, scoring 8.4 million viewers at its peak and landing more than a dozen Golden Globe nominations and over two dozen Emmy nods. Jeremy Piven even won three consecutive supporting-actor Emmys as Ari Gold, the acerbic agent managing Hollywood actor Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) — a stand-in for exec producer Mark Wahlberg — while tolerating Vinnie’s hangers-on, Eric Murphy (Kevin Connolly), Johnny “Drama” Chase (Kevin Dillon), and Salvatore “Turtle” Assante (Jerry Ferrara).

But in the 2010s and the 2020s, as viewers held TV to a higher scrutiny, Entourage fell out of favor, so much so that creator Doug Ellin has had to go on the defensive more than once. “I don’t want to sound obnoxious or that I’m looking at Entourage as high art, but it was a pretty accurate portrayal of how people [acted] at that time in Hollywood,” he told Yahoo! Entertainment in 2021. “I think there’s an overcorrection that happened, and hopefully we’ll get to a place where there’s equality for everybody, but there’s also room for people to create their art and not be judged so harshly.”

The controversies about and around Entourage extend well past its writing and into the alleged behavior of those on set, though. As we hit the 15th anniversary of Entourage’s series finale on September 11, we’re recapping what we’d call the biggest controversies surrounding the HBO comedy.

2009: Rex Lee says he’s the subject of jokes about his ethnicity and sexuality on set

In 2009, Rex Lee — who played Lloyd, Ari’s long-suffering assistant — told TMZ that he’d been “occasionally” targeted by racist and homophobic attempts at humor on the Entourage set. “I try not to let it bother me,” the actor added.

Ellin told TMZ at the time he was “shocked and horrified” and would be “speaking to everybody” in the production, asserting such behavior is “not something condoned or acceptable.” The producer also said he’d spoken to Lee and said that anyone breaching that boundary again would be fired.

2011: Johnny Bananas sues Entourage over the Johnny Bananas character

Johnny Devenanzio, the Real World and Challenge alum better known to MTV viewers as Johnny Bananas, sued HBO in 2011 over Entourage’s Johnny Bananas, a TV role Drama gets on the show. Devenanzio claimed the fictional Johnny Banana damaged his name and personality and caused him emotional distress with an “unwarranted, unauthorized and unfavorable mention of plaintiff’s name and personality and allusions to plaintiff’s physical and mental character,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.

MTV

HBO, however, contended Devenanzio had a “fundamental misunderstanding of the law governing publicity and privacy rights.” Ultimately, a New York Superior Court judge determined Devenanzio filed his claims too late.

2014: Mark Wahlberg seeks to erase his criminal record

Wahlberg revived the debate about his past in 2014, just months before the Entourage film hit theaters, when he filed an application with the Massachusetts Board of Pardons to have his criminal record erased. As a teenager, Wahlberg and his friends had hurled rocks and yelled racial epithets at Black elementary school students in Boston, according to The Washington Post. Two years later, police alleged in court documents, Wahlberg assaulted two Asian men, knocking one unconscious with a 5-foot stick, punching the other in the face, and using racial slurs.

In a Boston Globe opinion, the former prosecutor from Wahlberg’s case argued he shouldn’t be pardoned, saying he had “never acknowledged the racial nature of his crimes.” And a woman who was one of the children at whom Wahlberg threw rocks told the Associated Press she also opposed the pardon prospect. “It was a hate crime, and that’s exactly what should be on his record forever,” she said.

In 2016, Wahlberg said he regretted making the pardon request. “I spent 28 years righting the wrong,” he said at a film festival Q&A, per TheWrap. “I didn’t need a piece of paper to acknowledge it. I was kind of pushed into doing it. I certainly didn’t need to or want to relive that stuff over again.”

2015: Accusations of offensive biases intensify around film’s release

Some critics called Entourage offensive from the get-go — Linda Stasi of the New York Post deemed it a “misogynistic mishmash” with “one-dimensional” women in 2004 — but the 2015 Entourage gave reviewers a chance to reassess the problems of the TV show.

WIRED’s Kevin McFarland called Entourage “a reliable font of crass humor and casual misogyny and homophobia” that year. Refinery29’s Anne Cohen, meanwhile, said most women on the show “are objectified to the point of absurdity.” And The Globe and Mail’s John Semley said the Entourage franchise’s themes of fealty, family and friendship are undercut by “the characters’ tendencies toward flippant sexism, homophobia, and straight obnoxiousness.”

2018: Sexual misconduct allegations against Jeremy Piven mount

As of 2018, eight women had accused Piven of sexual misconduct, according to BuzzFeed News, including background actor Anastasia Taneie, who told the site Piven grabbed her breasts and genitals in a dark hallway as he forcefully pushed her up against a wall on the Entourage set in 2009.

Attorneys for Piven provided BuzzFeed News with a polygraph test in which the actor said he never grabbed a woman’s genitals or used force to take sexual advantage of a woman. “As evidenced by the lie detector test I took and passed, I have never forced myself on anyone, nor have I ever exposed myself or restrained anyone against their will. To the contrary, if any woman ever said no, I stopped,” he said in a statement.

2020: Debi Mazar says the Entourage set was “misogynistic”

Debi Mazar spoke out about the hardships of filming her role as press agent Shuana on Entourage in a 2020 interview on PeopleTV’s Couch Surfing. “I took a job to make money,” she said. “[Ellin] wrote a really strong character, but that set was very testosterone-driven and misogynistic. And there [were] days where it was hard, but then I would just go into Shuana mode and go, ‘You know what? F*** you. Bye.’ You know? But I mean, at the end of the day, my job is to deliver, and that’s what I do.”

2020: Kevin Connolly is accused of sexual assault

Later that year, costume designer Gracie Cox told The Daily Beast that Connolly sexually assaulted her during a 2005 wrap party for Gardener of Eden, his full-length directorial debut. “There was not really a chance in my mind to object or resist,” Cox told the outlet. “It just happened really fast. I froze and was in shock.”

New: ‘Entourage’ star Kevin Connolly accused of sexual assault: “I want it to be known that he is dangerous” https://t.co/EspwVVIiNV

— Marlow Stern (@MarlowNYC) July 15, 2020

An attorney for Connolly disputed Cox’s allegations. “The incident with Ms. Cox was consensual, and he categorically denies any claim that it was assault,” the attorney said in a statement, per Variety. “Kevin acknowledges the lack of professionalism on his part, but he adamantly denies that it was anything other than a mutual consensual encounter.”

2021: Ellin complains about “righteous PC culture” taking down the show

Talking to Yahoo! Entertainment in 2021, Ellin claimed HBO had been giving Entourage the brush-off in recent years, blaming a “wave of righteous PC culture” and saying he resented the perceived slight “tremendously.”

He also accused the network of hiding Entourage on its streaming service. “For a while, we were hiding in, like, ‘wish-fulfillment shows,’” he said. “We were nominated for the Emmys or the Golden Globes almost every single year, so to not put us on the must-see comedy list was pretty bizarre.”

2025: Gal Gadot says she left the Entourage set due to someone’s inappropriate behavior

One of the guest stars who has gone on to greater success, Gal Gadot, had only negative things to say about her Entourage experience during an interview on the Israeli TV series The A Talk. “What I hated and didn’t enjoy at all was being on Entourage, an American series,” she said, according to The Jerusalem Post. “Someone there behaved inappropriately, and it got to the point where I left the set and stopped working with them.”

Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for Breakthrough Prize

2026: Doug Ellin disputes Mazar’s claim that she was fat-shamed on “toxic” set

In a 2026 Sunday Times interview, Mazar said her Entourage experience “got toxic towards the end,” alleging that members of the production “didn’t like” that she’d gained weight while pregnant.

Ellin took umbrage on X, writing, “This is disgusting. “Never, ever did myself or anyone that matters care or discuss Debi Mazar’s body. I would one million percent embrace any woman who got pregnant.”

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'Entourage' Creator Slams Debi Mazar's 'Disgusting' Fat-Shaming Claim

Then, however, Ellin commented on two Entourage actors’ bodies, saying he wanted Grenier more muscular and Ferrara fatter during the TV show’s run.