Terry Crews’s Settlement With Adam Venit and WME Stipulated Venit’s Permanent Resignation

Terry Crews. Photo: Paras Griffin/VMN18/Getty Images for BET

Talent agent Adam Venit resigned from WME Thursday, ten months after Terry Crews first accused him of grabbing his genitals. Though various reports surrounding Venit’s resignation described it as a “retirement” due to multiple causes, Vanity Fair reports that Venit’s resignation was a direct result of his and WME’s settlement with Crews. “The settlement between Crews, Venit, and WME stipulates that the talent agency must pay $375,000 to Crews to cover his attorney fees, and that Venit must resign — with a provision that WME cannot rehire him in any capacity in the future,” Vanity Fair writes. As part of the settlement, the agency also created new policies around sexual assault and battery, including new employee training and a new requirement that “requires allegations to be reported to the heads of the firm’s legal and human resources departments.”

Venit previously served as the head of WME’s motion-picture department, returning to the agency at a lower level after being suspended for 30 days last year. He previously worked at Endeavor, and stayed with the company through their merger with the William Morris Agency in 2009. Though Venit previously denied Crews’s allegations, after the L.A. district attorney’s office determined in March that what Crews described was not a felony, Venit sent Crews an apology letter “to start a dialogue in service of taking responsibility for the emotional challenge that this experience has caused you and your family.” Crews pressed on with his legal battle when he realized that letter came without real repercussions. “I never thought [Venit] would resign,” Crews told Vanity Fair of his long legal battle. “Ever. I was totally prepared to go all the way to next July and see the case all the way through.” When Venit left WME yesterday, Crews tweeted, “ACCOUNTABILITY.”