With a scant few exceptions, at the top of such a small list being my bestie (BTW: it’s her birthday today; if you know her, send her at least your regards; if you don’t you should), people in power have more often than not let me down. Think I’m exaggerating? Last week yet again I somehow came up short for a position I am fully qualified for weeks after what by all accounts appeared to be a flawless interview where salary expectations had already been offered up on their end. Not even the courtesy of a personal reply explaining exactly why they chose to “go in another direction”. The phrases being used are getting predictable and redundant; sure seems like everyone I’ve been interacting with of late is using the same AI program to construct their rejection letters.
I’ve also been let down time and time again by people I’ve worked for and admired over the years who do get multiple opportunities to take their talents elsewhere yet somehow manage to squander them because they simply can’t help themselves from doing something or someone they most def shouldn’t have. You can easily place Jeff Shell as number one with a bullet on that hit parade.
I’ve made no secret of my admiration for his skills and indeed have defended the rise of David Ellison and pere to the control of Paramount and now Warner Brothers. Ellison’s own relative inexperience notwithstanding, he had the benefit of Shell as an advisor and consigliere through both journeys. While he officially had no title or de facto responsibilities until the battle for Shari Redstone’s family jewels was finally won by an equally spolied nepobaby, his fingerprints were inarguably on many of the controversial decisions the Skydance team made, not the least of which being the Stephen Colbert cancellation. Shell has made it his calling to question the viability of programming dayparts without financial upside going back to his days as Comcast’s chief executive where he seriously explored eliminating NBC’s 10 PM weeknight hour entirely. As someone who cut his teeth on the FOX model of two weeknight hours followed by higher HUT-level late newscasts for its stations, he knew far better than most the strong case his argument made. But FOX didn’t have Dick Wolf providing content to them that funnelled billions to the bottom line, so Shell’s master plan never did take root. So when the CBS brass trotted out the numbers that defended their call to get out of late night entirely, political ideologies aside, I recognized that cost-benefit analysis for what it was and knew darn well it sure didn’t come from the great brain of George Cheeks.
It’s already been well established that Shell was deeply involved in the dealings of Paramount even at that time. Maybe you forgot what THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER’s Winston Cho and Alex Weprin unearthed last summer:
Shell, the RedBird Capital executive who will be the incoming president of new Paramount if the merger with Skydance is completed, has been accused by an attorney for South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone of interfering in contract negotiations with potential suitors.
In a June 21 letter obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, Park County, the entertainment company run by Parker and Stone, threatened legal action for directing Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery to modify certain terms of their offers in a “manner calculated to benefit Paramount at the expense” of the company. It pointed to Shell urging WBD to give Paramount+ an exclusive 12-month window for new episodes of the show and to shorten the term of the deal from 10 to five years, which could worsen the studio’s bid for the series.
Eventually, as they ultimately did in their quest for Warner Brothers Discovery itself, Paramount emerged victorious. SOUTH PARK somehow has managed to avoid the kind of knee-bending that has been accused for the demise of Colbert and actually delivered a creatively hailed and ratings positive season last fall where the world got to enjoy the ridiculous sight of Donald Trump’s miniscule penis and a super-jacked Satan getting it on. And it sure seemed like an on-target promotional base with which to promote the UFC inventory which has elevated the platform to must-have status with that passionate fan base, especially the ones who no longer have to shell out (pun intended) for pay-per-view top-of-the-card bouts the way they did at ESPN.
So with all of this at Shell’s feet as the reality of “Warnermount” has unfolded why oh why did he allow himself to become the clickbait fodder he has now become. Cho, now joined by Gary Baum, dropped this bombshell last week:
A legal fight is taking shape between Paramount and thehigh-stakes gambler who sparked an internal investigation and SEC inquiry into whether company president Jeff Shell prematurely disclosed details of a $7.7 billion UFC media rights deal. At the heart of the matter: An allegation that the studio and Shell reneged on an agreement to pick up an English-language format of a Roku reality show the gambler, R.J. Cipriani, co-created and exec produced. A lawsuit hasn’t been filed, though Paramount is lawyering up.
But yesterday DEADLINE’s Dominic Patten revealed that the other shoe and then some had indeed dropped:
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.
In between these two stories was a deep dive authored by THE LOS ANGELES TIMES’ Meg James and Stacy Perman that attempted to explain how and why Shell got mixed up with a character like Cipriani in the first place. It’s a plot line that even few Dick Wolf dramas have been able to recreate:
Shell’s dealings with the blackjack player began with an odd meeting in August 2024…Shell was facing a serious problem. Someone was trying to plant unfavorable stories about him from his NBC days just as he was poised to stage his second act, two of the sources said. Enter Patty Glaser, the high-powered entertainment litigator who represents Shell, and, as it happens, the person they suspected was behind the whisper campaign: Robert James “R.J.” Cipriani.
To defuse the tensions, Glaser convened a meeting at her Century City offices between Shell and her other client, Cipriani, who is a self-professed whistleblower and high-stakes gambler who goes by the handle RobinHood702 (the Las Vegas area code). Shell attended the meeting at Glaser’s recommendation. Cipriani wanted to meet the executive. He had been angry ever since Shell sacked his friend Ron Meyer, former vice chairman of NBCUniversal, in 2020. Cipriani, according to a source familiar with the situation, was galled that Meyer had been unceremoniously dumped, particularly after it was revealed that Shell also had been engaged in an improper relationship — with a CNBC anchor.
During the meeting at Glaser’s office, the two men discussed their families. Cipriani appeared to have a change of heart. He told Shell that he would be his friend and personal “crisis PR” agent helping him with damage control, one of the sources said.
And thus a clearly transactional relationship began. The James/Perlman piece reveals that Cipriani took full credit for the positive spin surrounding the eventual SOUTH PARK deal that credited Shell. And Cipriani was led to believe that he was going to get a greenlight for this gem of an idea:
Cipriani asked Shell to greenlight an English version of a Spanish-language music show that streams on Roku TV, “Serenata De Las Estrellas.” The TV project, like the Spanish-language version, would be co-executive produced by Cipriani and his wife…”Mr. Shell promised to give my client, to produce the English language version of the show that was already a Spanish language hit,” Aaronoff said. “It was not something that was risky … It was not some crazy idea”… Cipriani — who also has producer credits on the 2020 documentary about Vegas, “Money Machine: Behind the Lies,” and the 2015 movie, “Wild Card” — had intended to make “Serenata” as a homage to his late mother, Regina. It was inspired by a song that Cipriani used to sing to her when he was growing up. But Shell failed to deliver, and Cipriani became furious.
Not since Christopher Moltisanti pitched CLEAVER around town has a project with such personal passion been offered up. I assume Shell was familiar with how that ultimately got handled. And frankly, considering that CBS just gave prime time real estate to a ripoff like AMERICA’S CULINARY CUP, it’s not as if they’re already overloaded with significantly better ideas.
Maybe had Shell bothered to look up the network’s history with one Keefe Brasselle he might have discovered a few more ways to deal with the likes of Cipriani. Wikipedia provides that historic template:
Brasselle had a close friendship with CBS executive James Aubrey. Brasselle started his own production company, “Richelieu Productions,” and Aubrey granted Brasselle’s company three new but untested television series without any previous script, pitch, or pilots: The Baileys of Balboa starring Paul Ford, The Cara Williams Show, and The Reporter starring Harry Guardino. These received preferential treatment, airing during the 1964-1965 season in the “cushiest time periods available in all of network TV today,” according to Variety,[6] and all had poor ratings. There were rumors that Aubrey had no choice in approving the Brasselle projects due to threats from the Mafia, with which Brasselle was known to be connected. The insider chicanery angered CBS stockholders, who filed and won a lawsuit against Aubrey and Brasselle.
In this environment, where a streaming platform has no such time period issues and CBS stockholders are more than willing to look to willingly compensate shakedowns, I’d offer it wouldn’t have been the worst decision to throw SERENATA a bone. UGLY BETTY and JANE THE VIRGIN somehow worked. AMERICAN IDOL was based on a European format. I could have written that defensive narrative even better than the folks who authored the Colbert cancellation analysis did.
But hail mary “solutions” aside this still begs the key question I’d love to ask Shell myself: With all you have going for you then and now–James and Perman recapped that he kinda had a coupla silver spoons of his own at the start–why the f–k would you have felt the need to shtup a Hong Kong hottie in the first place, and then get pennywise and pound-foolish with someone who seems to be as perplexed as I am by such a choice?
Trust me, I’ve been asked that same question time and time again of late. Why do you choose friends with debatable pasts and motives who clearly don’t have your best interests at heart?
At least I can answer that question with clarity. Because they actually do, and they’re a helluva lot more present in my life than just about any of y’all have been or still are. My bestie in particular. Tell me, Jeff, can you make anything even close to such a declarative statement about R.J.Cipriani? Or Patty Glaser, for that matter?
I sure hope your family and actual friends are still willing to forgive and forget as they were the last time you self-imploded your career. And certainly I hope they’ll treat you slightly better than far too many of mine have for choices nowhere near as mind-boggling as the ones you continue to make.
We’ll see how this plays out once the likes of Glaser and Blair Connelly, an Ellison loyalist who joined the Shell defense team yesterday , have their say. I’m certainly not gonna run Shell a benefit any time soon one way or the other. But for as little as this may matter to him, know full well I’ve yet again been let down by choosing to back a horse hell-bent on shooting itself in the fetlock.
Until next time…