EXCLUSIVE: For the second time in three years, Jeff Shell has been ousted from a high company perch.
Back in April 2023, the exec lost his job as NBCUniversal CEO amidst allegations of inappropriate conduct with a feminine CNBC reporter. Today, after weeks of claims about indiscretion and a multimillion-dollar authorized backwards and forwards, Shell is out as because the president of Paramount Skydance, I’ve discovered.
Shell will likely be resigning his seat on Paramount’s Board ASAP too.
How the fallout for Shell will play out is TBD, although don’t be stunned if his parachute is lower than the same old manufacturing deal and/or advisor position. Framed to assist Shell save face, I hear there’s a huge stink on the 60-year-old exec for the messy approach issues went down.
Neither reps for Shell nor Paramount responded to request for remark from Deadline on the transfer.
The long anticipated pink-slipping comes as a report from regulation agency Gibson Dunn seems to have cleared Shell of claims by an attention-seeking, so-called professional gambler that the chief shared confidential and doubtlessly explosive info. The preliminary $150 million breach of contract and fraud complaint from Robert James “RJ” Cipriani towards Shell and his spouse, which has grown to incorporate Paramount itself, CEO David Ellison, his Oracle founder father Larry Ellison and a swath of advisors, accused the now exiting Par president of gossiping about offers surrounding UFC, WBD and, extra not too long ago, Donald Trump.
“We’re paying way too much for Warner Bros,” Shell is alleged to have instructed Cipriani of the eventual $111 billion bid to amass the long-lasting firm, topping Netflix’s $89 billion bid for WB’s studio and streaming property. “If we could just wait another year, we could get it a whole lot cheaper.”
Cipriani, who has already submitted a whistleblower submitting with the SEC over Shell and the $7.7 billion UFC deal, declares that further particulars and extra WBD tidbits have been unveiled by the Paramount exec in a February 2 face-to-face assembly “at the offices of a prominent Los Angeles entertainment law firm,” clearly aka GlaserWeil.
On March 16, the O’Melveny & Meyers-represented Jeff Shell and Laura Shell filed a counterclaim towards Cipriani in L.A. Superior Court.
When it involves Cipriani’s personal amended criticism that features the Ellisons, Paramount brass and the Shells, on March 17, the company said: “Paramount is aware of the frivolous lawsuit and believes the claims are entirely without merit. There is no factual or legal basis for any claim against Paramount, its Directors or its major shareholders, and the Company intends to defend these allegations vigorously.”
