Inside the Near-Collapse and Resurrection of the Redstone Media Empire
In the new book Unscripted, authors James Stewart and Rachel Abrams dissect the prolonged, tumultuous battle over the media behemoth that is now Paramount Global—and reveal how, against all odds, Shari Redstone emerged victorious
The Redstone family’s real-life version of Succession played out for several years in the public eye.
Illustration: Kimberly Elliot
To anyone who’s struggling to put the finances of an older parent in order, or who thinks their family is a little bit messy, or who simply worries their enemy list might be a bit too long, consider the plight of Shari Redstone circa 2015.
Back then, Redstone was fighting for control of a media conglomerate created by her ailing father, Sumner, in which her primary adversaries were Sumner’s much younger live-in girlfriend and his other much younger live-in girlfriend. There were also two public company chief executive officers allied with the girlfriends, Philippe Dauman (CEO of Viacom) and Les Moonves (CEO of CBS Corp.), plus one of Sumner’s ex-wives and several of his additional romantic partners—one of whom was involved in a legal dispute with girlfriend No. 2 about nude photos on an allegedly stolen laptop. Bit players included the fiancé of girlfriend No. 2, a handsome but emotionally unstable lothario who’d spent time in prison, and a former Houston Oilers cheerleader who was a frequent visitor to the house (much to the chagrin of girlfriends Nos. 1 and 2). Got all that?