Why the Sumner Redstone Trial Was a Sideshow – It’s About Viacom

In an op-ed for the L.A. Times, TheWrap’s Sharon Waxman offers her take on the Sumner Redstone trial

viacom sumner redstone shari redstone philippe dauman

The following was published today in the op-ed section of the Los Angeles Times. 

Tout ça pour ça, as they say in French — all this for this?

The hyperventilated drama over Sumner Redstone’s mental fitness boiled down to a video deposition last week. The media billionaire — however diminished at 92 years old — still had enough fight left in him to call his former girlfriend Manuela Herzer an unprintable slur.

Thus a few choice words ended a trial that had the media lined up in the hallway of Superior Court straining at the leash to learn the dirty details of Redstone’s life as his former girlfriend challenged his family for caretaking control.

On Monday, Judge David Cowan dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning Herzer cannot refile with new evidence. Instead she filed an entirely new lawsuit seeking $70 million in damages against the Redstone family and medical team.

It’s an open secret in Hollywood that Redstone is barely physically functional, often not conscious and unable to feed himself….

Click here to read the whole thing.

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