HOLLYWOOD (CNS) - President Barack Obama's top Hollywood fundraiser has
resigned as U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas and returned to Los Angeles in the
hopes of patching up the president's battered relationship with the
entertainment industry, according to an entertainment newspaper.
Nicole Avant, the daughter of music executive and Democratic activist
Clarence Avant, was one of Obama's earliest Hollywood supporters, raising
millions for the president's 2008 campaign. She was rewarded with a diplomatic
post, which she has now put aside to support the president's reelection,
according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Sources told the Reporter that Obama's reelection campaign plans to use
Avant as one of its top liaisons to the entertainment community.
The sources characterized the relationship between the Obama
administration and Hollywood as tense and troubled, even though all of the
president's fundraisers in town have sold out and have been well attended, the
newspaper reported on its website.
Hollywood activists believe Obama has given their causes short shrift,
according to the Reporter, and some of Obama's top money givers have felt
ignored and disregarded except when the president needed campaign
contributions.
With her deep ties to both the Democratic party and the entertainment
industry, Avant is being called upon to patch things over and rekindle at least
some of Hollywood's enthusiasm for Obama, the newspaper reported.
To that end, Avant and her husband, Netflix chief content officer Ted
Sarandos, will host a major fundraiser attended by first lady Michelle Obama at
their Beverly Hills home on Jan. 31, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Invitations are expected to go out in the coming days.
The first lady also is expected to be in Hancock Park for a luncheon on
Feb. 1 hosted by attorney Michael Lawson and his interior-designer wife Mattie
McFadden Lawson.