Kitty Laing will step down as head of comedy at United Agents after an investigation into social media reposts and shares highly critical of Israel. She will, however, remain with the U.K. talent agency to represent her clients.
“Following the statements made earlier this week, it has been agreed that Kitty Laing will step away from her leadership roles as head of comedy and as a member of the executive committee of United Agents, effective immediately. Kitty will continue to work with her clients and the team at United Agents,” the talent agency said in a statement obtained by The Hollywood Reporter.
United Agents on Oct. 24 opened an investigation into Laing, one of its senior agents, after she shared posts on X, formerly Twitter, that were highly critical of Israel as it mounts a campaign in Gaza against Hamas after the deadly Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in southern Israel.
United Agents was quick to disassociate itself from the social media shares by Laing, who represents comedy writers, actors and sketch comedy artists like Michelle Asante, Jamie Demetriou, Jack Brett Anderson, and Dan Harry and Ollie King.
On Tuesday, Laing’s reposts and X account were taken down and briefly restored to allow an apology by the head of comedy over her social media shares to be posted: “I would like to unreservedly apologize for my retweets on social media surrounding the horrendous attacks in Israel on October 7th. With hindsight, I realize how naive I have been and that much of the information on social media surrounding the conflict is unsubstantiated and hurtful. I should have taken time to consider this beforehand.”
The deleted retweets from the top U.K. comedy agent were flagged by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Lee Kern in his own X thread.
