‘Entourage’: Ari Gold’s Top 5 Biggest Meltdowns
For lovers of the HBO series Entourage, watching Vincent Chase’s (Adrian Grenier) agent Ari Gold’s (Jeremy Piven) on-screen tantrums, emotional explosions, and profanity-laced workplace tirades are the most entertaining parts of the show. Fearless in business but quick to anger, Ari Gold was a Hollywood heavyweight who never backed down from a personal or professional challenge.
Although Ari’s cantankerous outbursts were always entertaining, they also landed him in hot water on a number of occasions. His short temper often caused him to make impulsive decisions that either harmed himself or those around him.
In honor of his lack of self-control, here are five times Ari Gold went absolutely crazy.
Ari mistakenly fired the mailroom assistant
As the studio moved forward with pre-production for its Aquaman franchise, Ari scrambled to get Vince cast as the film’s lead. Shockwaves are felt throughout Hollywood when it’s revealed that James Cameron has been brought on as the film’s director.
Vince’s manager, Eric Murphy (Kevin Connolley), finds out via Ari’s former assistant Josh Weinstein (Joshua LeBar) and is not happy that Josh knew before Ari. After interrupting Ari’s marriage counseling with multiple phone calls, Eric breaks the news to Ari, who rushes back to his agency to find the person responsible for the lapse in communication.
He finds out it’s Peter Cole and charges into his office to confront him. Upset that Peter didn’t notify the staff, he shouts out him, knocks all of his possessions off of his desk, then tells him he’s fired before swiftly exiting. Unfortunately, the man standing at Peter’s desk is not Peter—it’s merely the mailroom assistant who was delivering Peter’s mail.
The angry agent injures himself after being fired
Throughout season 2, tensions rise between Ari and his senior business partner Terrence McQuewick. After an unexpected return from retirement, Terrence begins feuding with Ari, who believes that Terrence is trying to steal Vince as his client and push him out of the agency.
Trusting his intuition, Ari organizes a coup and recruits 8 promising agents from within the company to help him run a new agency he plans to launch. However, his rival, Adam Davies, rats him out to Terrence before their meeting. Terrence then forces all of his staff to sign letters of commitment and fires Ari in front of the whole company.
Ari is forced to leave without recovering any of his possessions, but it gets worse; his company cellphone is shut off, so he’s unable to contact anyone, and the valet refuses to bring him his company car in the parking deck. Enraged, he punches a cement beam and badly injures his hand, screaming and stomping in pain.
He physically assaults a rival agent
Ari and Adam’s rivalry boils over on Ari’s anniversary after Ari’s wife gifts him with a Ferrari. Adam is impressed by the car on their drive to work and challenges Ari to an illegal street race. Having lost, Ari must send Adam $100, but he exacerbates the issue by sending the money with a bag full of human feces.
Throughout the day, things escalate as the two exchange pranks. However, things go too far when Adam emails Ari an NSFW photo of his wife, who had starred in an adult film many years prior. Outraged, Ari runs out of his office and into his former agency, where Adam is employed.
He calls Adam out of his office and demands that he apologize, threatening to beat him up in front of the onlooking staff. Adam initially refuses smugly, but Ari forcefully smacks the side of Adam’s head, making Adam realize that he’s serious. Ari comes close to brutalizing Adam, but the young agent apologizes before matters get worse.
Ari fires his former staff with a paintball gun
In season 6, Terrence offers to sell his agency to Ari due to an impending divorce. After a period of intense negotiation, Ari finally agrees to buy the company.
In dramatic fashion, he returns to his former agency with an enormous paintball gun, shooting it at anyone he believes is not an asset to the company. Things come full circle when he enters Adam’s office and terminates him embarrassingly, firing the gun and ruining Adam’s suit.
He explodes on his rival at a posh restaurant
At the conclusion of season 7, Ari’s life is in a major upheaval; details of his toxic workplace antics have been revealed to the world, putting a strain on his professional life and marriage. He’s lost out on a major deal with the NFL and believes his rival, Amanda Daniels, is the one responsible.
Ari and Amanda run into each other at an upscale restaurant while he’s having dinner with his wife, and she approaches him to talk. Infuriated that she cost him an opportunity to bring a football team to Los Angeles, he insults her in front of the entire restaurant.
However, he speaks too soon, as she reveals to him that she was trying to keep him involved in the project and never intended to leak incriminating recordings of him. She gestures to her table which shows several distraught NFL representatives and explains that they no longer have any interest in working with him.
