'Entourage' Creator Doug Ellin Says He Has 'Zero Positivity' About Jake Paul's New Betting App Ad, Calls It 'Garbage' and 'Trash'

Doug Ellin is not feeling the warm glow of Entourage nostalgia after stars Jeremy Piven and Adrian Grenier reunited onscreen.

The actors appear as themselves in a three-minute commercial for Jake Paul’s gambling app Betr, but the setup echoes their HBO roles as agent Ari Gold and movie star Vincent Chase. Piven makes his way through a mansion party to find Grenier aboard a yacht, where he pitches a movie role.

Ellin said he received “400 messages” about the ad and emphasized that he had no involvement. “When I see cheap, s----- imitations that try to pass for what we did it makes me puke,” he wrote on Instagram, later calling the spot “trash and theft” on X.

“Doug Ellin, as creator, typically doesn't personally hold the copyright in Entourage — that sits with the studio/network,” said Kahn Media Law founder Kevin Kahn.

“What he definitely doesn't hold is any claim over Jeremy Piven's or Adrian Grenier's own image, name, and likeness — that belongs to the actors, full stop,” he added.

“When Piven and Grenier do a paid ad ‘as themselves’, they're monetizing their own persona, not licensing Ellin's show. He has no veto,” Kahn said. “The gray area is that ‘as themselves’ is doing a lot of work here.”

“Advertisers know that hiring an actor to play a version of the character audiences already love — same energy, same dynamic, just without the character's actual name — gets you 90% of the nostalgia payoff without needing a copyright license from the studio,” Kahn said, calling it a “well-worn workaround.”

“It's usually legally defensible,” he added, “it just doesn't feel that way to the people who built the thing.”

Entertainment attorney Tisha Morris, founder of Legacy Arts Law, said the details of the performance matter.

“Cast members generally remain free to reunite and play on their shared chemistry, but that does not necessarily give them the right to recreate protected characters,” Morris said.

“The legal line depends on the execution: using character names, distinctive dialogue, costumes, music, clips, logos, or other recognizable elements can raise copyright, trademark, false-endorsement, and contractual issues,” she explained.

“The actors may control the commercial use of their own names and likenesses,” she added, “but they do not automatically own the fictional world that made those likenesses famous.”

Betr said Piven and Grenier were appearing as themselves and called the commercial an “unexpected cultural moment.” The company also claimed it generated nearly 10 million organic social views in less than 24 hours.

Despite past interest from Ellin and cast members, an official Entourage revival has never entered development.