Doug Ellin pushed back Monday against Debi Mazar’s claim that she was fat-shamed on the set of Entourage, calling the allegation “disgusting” and insisting he and anyone who mattered never discussed her body. He said the only physique comments he made during the show were aimed at Adrian Grenier and Jerry Ferrara.
The denial came two days after Mazar said in The Times U.K. that the atmosphere around the HBO series changed after her second pregnancy. She said the early days of the show were “a joy-fest,” but that by the third season the set had become “a testosterone-fueled environment” and, later, “toxic towards the end” for her.
That dispute is why Mazar’s name is drawing attention now. She said she had her second baby while the show was still in production and that people “didn’t like that I got fat, even though I got skinny again,” a comment that turns a general complaint into a specific accusation about how she says she was treated at work. Ellin answered with a flat denial and a different memory of the same set, saying he would “one million percent” embrace any woman who got pregnant.
He also drew a line between Mazar and the male co-stars he said he did comment on, saying he wanted Grenier more muscular and Ferrara fatter. Ellin said he would “forever feel bad” about the remarks he made to Ferrara because he did not understand the health implications at the time, while making clear that he did not recall any similar discussion about Mazar.
Mazar, who was on Entourage throughout its run from 2004 to 2011, said she was outspoken, never hid her discontent and remained professional even as she felt the set shift around her. Her account and Ellin’s denial leave the same question standing in plain sight: whether what she remembers as body-shaming was, to him, not part of the working culture at all. For now, the public record is limited to two sharply different recollections of the same years on the same show.
