A $150 million lawsuit filed Monday against Jeff Shell looks to be putting the Paramount executive in both legal and corporate peril.
“Jeff knows he f*cked up,” an insider told Deadline this morning as the long-anticipated action by Robert James “RJ” Cipriani hit the court docket. “His second act is over,” the source added of Shell, who was booted from his NBCUniversal CEO gig in 2023 under a cloud of misconduct involving a female CNBC reporter. Two years later, after a stint at RedBird Capitol Partners, Shell was brought back to Hollywood by David Ellison as the Skydance boss successfully bought Paramount from Shari Redstone.
“Like last time, it’s his personal life that is his priority now,” the insider said Monday.
Tellingly, proving denial is truly not just a river in Egypt, Shell is at work today, I hear. As a February launched probe on the Cipriani matter by legal firm Gibson Dunn enters its final stage, the besieged exec is in an apparently jovial mood on the Melrose lot as we speak.
Among the major minefields for Shell in the civil complaint from Cipriani , which Deadline exclusively reported on last month as a draft copy was circulating, are allegations that the Paramount president had loose lips and media insecurities. The nearly two-year conversation and text correspondence between the ex-NBCU exec and the Cocaine Quarterback documentary participant began when they were introduced by mutual lawyer Patricia Glaser.
Among other inside info claims like the $7 billion UFC deal the David Ellison-owned company made last year, Cipriani asserts Shell told him about the bitter bid battle for Warner Bros. Discovery. The suit against Shell and his wife alleges the executive at one point telling Cipriani: “We’re paying way too much for Warner Bros. If we could just wait another year, we could get it a whole lot cheaper.”
In a months-long fight with Netflix, and being rejected by David Zaslav and the WBD board repeatedly, Paramount finally won the iconic studio with a $111 billon bid. Putting up $83 billion for WB’s streaming and studio assets, Netflix declined to counter the big bid after the WBD board termed it “superior” to the streamer’s efforts.
As well, Cipriani’s 67-page complaint has text messages from Shell proclaiming ““I love you!!!!” after the former supposedly planted a Shell favorable story in the press related to Paramount’s (successful) late-2025 deal to gain all South Park rights.
Political realities and alliances being what they are right now, Paramount had long boosted it had a much smoother path to regulatory approval of any WB acquisition than Netflix. Speculation had swirled in some circles that if Netflix, who had an agreement last December with the WBD board, hit the rocks in terms of regulation, Paramount could have swooped in down the line and snagged WBD at fire sale prices. As is it, even with an estimated $79 million debt load in the end, Ellison refused to take no for an answer and fought to get WBD now, rather than wait out a possible Netflix deal failure.
Paramount, who are not named as a defendant in the suit, which says Shell owes self-styled professional gambler Cipriani big bucks for a TV series that never was made and for Crisis PR consulting, did not respond to request for comment on the suit.
In fact, Paramount and CEO David Ellison have said nothing publicly on the Shell situation the past two weeks.
Yet, it was not overlooked that Shell was nowhere to be seen or heard on the pivotal March 2 call Paramount brass had with Wall Street analysts and the media with over the WBD merger. With the legal storm brewing around him, Shell was sidelined within Paramount’s upper echelon from the WBD endgame, I’m told.
However, even with David Ellison and his Oracle founder father Larry Ellison‘s close friendship with Donald Trump and the DOJ essentially signing off on the WBD deal, state AGs and others are poised to potentially contest it under antitrust and consumer protection grounds.
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