Entourage alum Debi Mazar has alleged that the set of the drama series became “toxic” toward the end of its run.
“Season 1 was a joy-fest,” Mazar, 62, said of Entourage, which premiered in 2004, during an interview with The Sunday Times published on Saturday, August 29. “But in the third season, the set was a testosterone-fueled environment. I’m tough, but it got toxic towards the end for me.”
Mazar, who played publicist Shauna Roberts on all eight seasons of the show, claimed that her coworkers “didn’t like that I got fat” after she gave birth to her second baby with husband Gabriele Corcos. (Mazar and Corcos, 53, share daughters Evelina, 24, and Giulia, 20.)
“Even though I got skinny again,” the Younger star added. “It was complicated because I’m outspoken and never held back my discontent. But I always was professional, and I’m grateful I was on it. It was a lot of fun, until it wasn’t.”
Mazar did not name anyone from the cast specifically in regard to her claims.
Entourage followed Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier), a young actor hoping to make it big in Los Angeles alongside his friends from Queens, New York, including his manager Eric “E” Murphy (Kevin Connolly), his half-brother, Johnny “Drama” Chase (Kevin Dillon), and his friend Turtle (Jerry Ferrara).
The series, created by Doug Ellin and executive produced by Mark Wahlberg and Stephen Levinson, ran on HBO from July 2004 to September 2011.
A revival film was released in 2015 and starred all the primary cast members, including Mazar.
Mazar previously admitted that she sometimes struggled to play her character in the series.
“I was kind of, almost like embarrassed by my dialogue,” she explained on PeopleTV‘s Couch Surfing in 2020. “Because I curse, and I obviously have the ability to be a complete trash mouth, but some of the things I would say would completely make me blush.”
She continued, “With TV, you don’t know what they’re going to write. I took a job to make money. I mean, [creator Doug Ellin] wrote a really strong character, but that set was very testosterone-driven and misogynistic.”
Mazar recalled that whenever she had a bad day on set, she would “go into Shauna mode, and go, ‘You know what, f*** you bye.’”
“At the end of the day, my job is to deliver,” she concluded.
Fifteen years after the Entourage series came to an end, many fans are still pushing for a reboot. Grenier, 50, addressed rumors about the show coming back while speaking exclusively to Us in March.
“I would love to do the show again, obviously,” he said. “You know, I’m torn because it’s an iconic show that defined an era. I don’t know how we would do that today, because we’d have to address a lot of things that are current.”
He continued, “But that could … that’s an opportunity as well. I think it can’t be the same thing, because it was so tied to that time. It’s a time and a moment and a vibe that I don’t think you can replicate.”
