Hollywood super-agent Ari Emanuel sat down with Rachel Maddow for a 92nd Street Y conversation tied to his new memoir, Roll the Calls, and the talk turned into a remarkably candid rundown of his health routine, one that includes drinking live worms every day, ice baths, light beds and fasting.
Rachel Maddow pressed him directly on it, describing the regimen laid out in his book:
“You freeze yourself in an ice bath, then you light yourself up.”
The response from Ari Emanuel set the tone for the whole exchange:
“Here’s the point, let’s just say the following. Let me answer some questions that you haven’t asked me, just let me answer them ’cause this is not my first rodeo about this issue. I don’t wanna live forever, I just, what I do makes me feel really good. My workouts, the light bed I do in the morning, my ice baths, my saunas, my workouts, my fasting, worms, what I eat, how I live my life.”
He explained his vetting process for any new wellness habit:
“Whenever I come across something that I think is interesting, I call up my brother Zeke, and I said, okay, can it kill me? He does his work, he gets back on the phone with me.”
On the worms specifically, he said:
“When it came to the worms, I got the doctor from Duke on the phone that I read the article about. We’re having this conversation and one of the funniest lines I’ve ever heard in my life, the doctor says, ‘Well they don’t colonize.’ I lose it on the phone. Cracking up. And I go to Zeke, I said, ‘Okay, can it kill me? No? I guess I’m trying them.’ I’ve been doing helmets, they’re called. Microscopic worms.”
Asked how long and how often, Ari Emanuel said:
“From Thailand and the UK, every day for 15 years.”
He added:
“I drink a bottle every day.”
When Rachel Maddow asked if they are alive, he confirmed:
“They’re alive.”
He then laid out his reasoning:
“You know, people think it goes from the brain down the vagus nerve to the gut. No, it goes from the gut to the brain. And most of the inflammation in our lives that causes a lot of disease comes from the gut. And our guts change at around age 30 to 35 and around 60 to 65. The younger we can keep our guts, the healthier we can be mentally, physically, et cetera.”
Rachel Maddow then raised the idea that immense wealth tends to produce unusual personal habits, asking him point blank whether billionaires are simply weird. He responded:
“Wow, I never knew Rachel Maddow generalizing, but I’m okay with that. I have the ability now, and remember, I was making 15 cents a mile. I have the ability now to, God bless, I’m blessed, to do what I want to do. And this is one of the things that makes me happy.”
He didn’t fully deny the premise, either:
“Do I think I’m a weirdo as it relates to, I know billionaires that are really weird? The longevity stuff, it gets real weird real fast. But I’m not one of those guys that is taking my blood, getting young blood, I’m not doing any of that crap. I’m satisfied a lot, I’m happy a lot, and I’m enjoying what I’m doing.”
