South Park, failed TV deals and alleged extortion: Inside the fiery battle between a media mogul and a high-stakes gambler
A lawsuit filed Monday by Paramount Skydance president Jeff Shell claims he is the target of a multimillion-dollar extortion plot by a high-stakes gambler, FBI informant, and film producer who, in a recent suit of his own, accused the studio head of violating U.S. securities laws, as well as stiffing him on a promised streaming TV deal.
In his filing, Shell alleges R.J. Cipriani – who says he was never paid for 18 months of crisis communications he undertook on Shell’s behalf – is carrying out a $150 million “shakedown” against him, based entirely on “utterly false” and “salacious” lies.
“R.J. Cipriani did not come to Court to enforce some purported oral agreement. He came to complete a shakedown,” according to the filing. “Cipriani’s playbook works like this: use a trusted mutual connection to cozy up to a high-profile target; leech to the fringes of the target’s world while manufacturing the illusion of closeness; falsely claim you have been helping the target from behind the scenes.”
The allegations, Shell’s complaint contends, were made in revenge after Shell “politely declined” to develop a show as compensation for Cipriani’s purported PR work.
“Shell had not asked for or received any services from Cipriani,” according to the complaint, which says Shell also “did not make promises to produce shows generally – much less to people he barely knew.”
But Cipriani, who goes by the moniker “Robin Hood 702,” a nod to his penchant for sharing his casino winnings with the less-fortunate, insists Shell himself “solicited” his services, and that he has the texts and WhatsApp messages to prove it.
In a phone call on Tuesday, Cipriani denied all of Shell’s allegations, telling The Independent, “He’s trying to save his a**. He’s going to do whatever he can do to say this didn’t happen.”
A source close to the case said Shell is “trying to say everything’s fake, that he didn’t know [Cipriani].”
“The biggest surprise is that he’s pretending like they didn’t have a relationship, and it just blows [Cipriani’s] mind,” according to the source.
Cipriani now plans to file an amended complaint, with additional details and allegations, he said.
In August 2024, Cipriani and Shell – who was fired as CEO of NBCUniversal the previous year after allegations of sexual harassment emerged – were introduced by attorney Patty Glaser, a Hollywood power player who had represented both men in unrelated matters, says Shell’s complaint, which was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
“They had a brief, innocuous meeting in Glaser’s presence during which Shell neither requested that Cipriani do anything for him nor made promises of any kind,” according to Shell’s complaint.
However, in Cipriani’s original complaint against Shell, filed March 9 in LA Superior Court, he said Shell knew exactly what was going on.
Following Cipriani’s “successful placement” of a news article that diverted unwanted attention away from Shell, his complaint says Shell “expressed effusive gratitude in a written WhatsApp message, stating, ‘Thank you thank you thank you.’”
-copy.jpeg?width=1200&auto=webp&trim=0%2C0%2C0%2C0&w=390&resize=390,220&ssl=1 "Tributes pour in for 38-year-old British woman found dead in suitcase in Athens: ‘Beautiful, loving and kind’")
