Entourage creator Doug Ellin wasn’t afraid to name Christina Aguilera as the show’s most difficult celebrity guest star throughout the years.
In Us Weekly‘s exclusive clip from the Thursday, November 14, episode of Jason Kennedy‘s pickleball series, The Wager, Ellin, 56, was asked whether there was ever a star-studded cameo that “just didn’t work out” during Entourage’s eight-season run.
“Most of them were pretty great. Usually the people that would come on the show were fans of the show,” Ellin told Kennedy, 42, and actor Austin North. “They would reach out to us about wanting to be on the show, so it was always a good experience.”
Ellin name-dropped Aguilera, 43, as the celebrity he struggled to collaborate with, adding, “Somehow we ended up with Christina Aguilera, who did not want to be there. I didn’t know if she didn’t know what the show was.”
According to Ellin, there were creative differences between him and Aguilera, who made an appearance in season 7 to perform “You Lost Me” from her sixth studio album, Bionic.
“She refused to do off-camera dialogue, so when Jeremy Piven was doing his scene she would just sit there and go, ‘Blah, blah, blah,’” he claimed. “I tried to talk to her, and that was the one time. But it worked out.”
Entourage, which ran from 2004 to 2011 and is loosely based on Mark Wahlberg’s rise to fame, followed fictional movie star Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) and his childhood friends from New York City as they attempted to further their own careers in Los Angeles. In addition to Grenier, the hit series catapulted Kevin Connolly, Kevin Dillon, Jerry Ferrara and Jeremy Piven into stardom.
“When I realized that we had something — because I would sit and grind away — was when season 1 just started airing. We were in Las Vegas shooting an episode of season 2 and I didn’t know if anyone had any idea what the show was,” Ellin recalled on the seventh episode of The Wager. “We started shooting a scene, and Jerry Ferrara walked out to the pool and people started screaming [his character’s nickname] Turtle. I almost thought it was a bit because we just started airing three weeks earlier. It is wild to see.”
Before Ellin opened up about Entourage‘s success, North, 28, was asked about the newest season of his Netflix series Outer Banks. The candid conversation is one of many that take place on Kennedy’s newest series, where he and his pickleball partner, Wes Burrows, compete against celebrities such as Taylor Lautner, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Shawn Johnson East, Rande Gerber, Presley Gerber, Kit Hoover, Johnny Lowe, Chandler Parsons, Bill Rancic, Colton Underwood, Golden Tate, David Dobrik, Eric Decker and more.
Each team on The Wager makes a bet before each match to determine consequences for the losing teams. The wagers range from charitable donations to embarrassing social media takeovers from the opponents. Between games, the teams have a halftime break where they open up about life and share off-the-court stories.
Us Weekly has reached out to Aguilera’s rep for comment.
The Wager is available now on NBC Sports, MSG Networks, BeIN Sports and more. The syndicated show will stream nationally on Roku TV, Tubi, Xumo and Pluto TV later this year.
