On January 5, a top talent agent cut their stay at a post-Golden Globes party short, rushing home to get a jump on all the work that had piled up during the holiday break. Two days later, that home would burn down in the wildfires that decimated the Pacific Palisades and Altadena areas of Los Angeles in addition to part of Malibu. The work that felt so pressing just hours before didn’t matter as much in the face of unimaginable personal loss.
That’s a sentiment felt across the entertainment industry, which was hit hard by the disaster, with people left homeless by the fires at every media company, talent and PR agency, sometimes at the highest level. Non-urgent meetings have been rescheduled, important decisions have been postponed, and work has shifted to remote or hybrid as hundreds of staffers under evacuation warnings had to leave or be ready to do so at a moment’s notice.
