Paramount Skydance president Jeff Shell was sued for $150 million in damages on Monday after Las Vegas gambler R.J. Cipriani followed through on a threat to take legal action against the executive.
The 67-page lawsuit alleges that Shell owes Cipriani for crisis communication services after he would tip the executive off to news articles and offer advice. Cipriani claims that there was a verbal agreement that Shell would help produce a TV series called “Star Serenade” in exchange for the services, but that he ultimately failed to do so.
It also claims that Shell would share non-public information with Cipriani about Paramount’s plans, including information about its $7.7 billion UFC media rights deal and an alleged belief that the company is overpaying in its $110 billion deal for Warner Bros. Discovery.
“This case arises from the oldest form of fraud: a powerful man took everything a less powerful man had to offer, promised to repay him, lied to him when he asked about it and then refused to compensate him at all,” the complaint states. “Shell’s own written messages prove he knew exactly what he was receiving and that he was indebted to Plaintiff for it.”
Cipriani was first approached by an attorney for Shell in August 2024 over the role he played in bringing public attention to Shell’s termination from NBCUniversal in 2023 following allegations of inappropriate conduct involving a CNBC correspondent.
After meeting with Shell, Cipriani decided to help him rebuild his reputation voluntarily and without compensation, according to the suit. During the meeting, Shell allegedly told Cipriani: “The main thing is I would not want the emails and texts between me and Hadley Gamble to come out, because that would absolutely destroy me.”
Shell would go on to serve at the private equity firm RedBird Capital Partners, which helped David Ellison’s Skydance Media in its successful bid to acquire Paramount Global in 2025. He would later be tapped by Ellison to serve as the company’s president.
Over the course of 18 months, Cipriani says he provided Shell with “extensive, sophisticated crisis communications and media management services, entirely without compensation.” According to the suit, Cipriani “routinely scanned media channels for potential stories adverse to Shell and took proactive steps to suppress, redirect, or neutralize such coverage before publication.”
He notably claimed credit for orchestrating a June article aimed at “exposing the greediness” of “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who accused Shell of interfering with the show’s streaming rights negotiations with Paramount. The suit claims that Cipriani saved Paramount $1.5 billion.
“I’m the one that put the article out for you!!! … I didn’t want to tell you till it hit so you have plausible deniability!,” Cipriani said, to which Shell allegedly replied: “Thank you RJ… I owe you dinner at least!”
But the pair’s relationship would sour after Shell allegedly failed to hold up his end of the bargain over a verbal agreement to produce an English adaptation of Roku’s Spanish-language series “Serenata De Las Estrellas” called “Star Serenade,” which Cipriani and his wife were set to co-executive produce. Cipriani intended to make the project as a “lasting legacy” for his mother Regina, saying the effort had been “the driving force and the most important thing consuming [Cipriani’s] entire life of almost sixty-five years,” according to the suit.
Glaser would arrange a meeting between Cipriani and Shell on Feb. 2, but talks between the two would eventually break down after Shell allegedly refused to compensate him.
During the same meeting, Cipriani said that Shell expressed disdain for Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav and that he would not be retained in any post-merger capacity because “they considered him to be incompetent and also to be a “suck-up,” overly enamored of Hollywood celebrities.” He also disclosed the company’s plans to sweeten its then-pending hostile tender offer to $30 per share in cash, with additional financing commitments – including a 25 cent ticking fee and $2.8 billion termination fee for Netflix – eight days prior to it being made public, in violation of SEC rules.
“We’re paying way too much for Warner Bros,” Shell added, according to the suit. “If we could just wait another year, we could get it a whole lot cheaper.”
Glaser allegedly offered Cipriani $150,000 of her own money to resolve the dispute, creating an “inherent conflict of interest” that rendered her “incapable of ethically serving the interests of either of her two now-adverse clients.”
“The attorney’s dual loyalties, and the attorney’s personal financial offer to resolve a dispute against that attorney’s own client, raise serious questions about the integrity of the attorney in question and underscore that Shell has yet to engage with Plaintiff’s claims in a fair and good-faith manner,” the lawsuit states.
Cipriani says he experienced “severe physical injury and physical sickness, including the exacerbation of pre-existing physical conditions” from Shell’s “prolonged campaign of exploitation, broken promises, betrayal of trust” and other conduct described in the lawsuit.
Cipriani’s formal lawsuit comes after his claims are already being investigated by an outside law firm while the U.S. Securities and Exchanges Commission is reviewing a related whistleblower complaint.
In a statement, Shell’s attorney Patricia Glaser previously said she was presented with a draft complaint that was “riddled with clear errors of fact and law.” At the time, she vowed that “we will strongly respond” if Cipriani moved forward with his lawsuit.
Representatives for Paramount and Shell did not immediately return TheWrap’s request for comment on Monday.
