Shelli Azoff — the wife of music mogul Irving Azoff, who once sent a live snake to a rival — threatened Sony Pictures brass last summer after the studio refused to let the Azoffs screen the film “Sex Tape” on their yacht.
Shelli and Irving — who reps the Eagles, Christina Aguilera and Gwen Stefani, and was Billboard’s No. 3 most powerful music exec of 2015 — requested that a DVD of the Cameron Diaz comedy be delivered to them a week before the film hit theaters last July. When Sony dared to say no, Shelli warned Sony boss Amy Pascal the studio could forget about licensing future music from Azoff acts or including them in movies.
The revelation came in e-mails uncovered last fall when hackers attacked Sony servers. In a July e-mail to Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton, as well as to Pascal and former vice chairman
Jeff Blake, a Sony assistant explains: “Amy has asked me to put this in an e-mail to make sure you are all aware of what has transpired in the last day, regarding Shelli Azoff, Irving Azoff’s wife.”
The e-mail continues: “On [July 7], Irving’s office called requesting to screen ‘Sex Tape’ for this coming weekend.” But Blake said no, and “Shelli did not like that answer.”
Shelli then “called our office . . . to pass this message along to Amy: ‘Please tell Amy that we are sorry Sony could not accommodate our request, and let her know that in the near and far future should Sony want any music rights or licensing, or artists for their future movies, that we will not be able to accommodate them.’ ”
The assistant then adds, “Amy’s question is, does Irving need to know/get involved?” and “Perhaps it was just Shelli’s anger speaking, and she is not making business decisions based on not being able to screen ‘Sex Tape.’ ” The film bombed a week later and was savaged by critics.
Perhaps the Sony execs should consider themselves lucky? Irving reportedly once recalled that Shelli got into a feud with music manager Michael Lippman and sent him a live snake.
A source noted the Azoffs regularly received Sony advance screeners. Reps had no comment.