Jeff Shell officially out as president of Paramount Skydance 

Jeff Shell is officially exiting his role as president of Paramount Skydance amid the fallout of a lawsuit filed by Las Vegas gambler and FBI informant RJ Cipriani.

Jeff Shell

Paramount’s board of directors on Wednesday said Shell had “elected to transition from his positions” as president and a member of Paramount’s board in order to “focus on this lawsuit.” 

Shell’s departure marks the second time in the space of three years that the veteran media exec has exited a high-profile post. In early 2023, he left his role as CEO of Comcast’s NBCUniversal after claims of sexual harassment and an inappropriate relationship with Hadley Gamble, a reporter at news network CNBC.

In a US$150m lawsuit filed last month, Cipriani alleged Shell owes him for crisis communications services that saved Paramount millions of dollars, in addition to claiming Shell verbally agreed to develop an English-language version of music competition series Serenata De Las Estrellas before later reneging.

The lawsuit also claims Shell preemptively disclosed confidential corporate information with Cipriani, including Paramount Skydance’s US$7.7bn Ultimate Fighting Championship deal, and divulged that he believed Paramount was overpaying for Warner Bros Discovery.

Shell subsequently filed a counter-suit, claiming he is being defamed and extorted, and calling Cipriani’s lawsuit an attempted “shakedown.”

After the situation with Cipriani came to light, Paramount Skydance hired a law firm Gibson Dunn to investigate whether Shell had leaked sensitive information. The exec was absent from key investor calls last month while the investigation was underway.

It is unclear at this stage if Paramount Skydance will look to replace Shell, who has played a key role in building the strategy and the executive team over the past couple of years as Skydance acquired Paramount and later inked a US$111bn deal to buy Warner Bros Discovery.

The board ended by saying it was “grateful for Mr. Shell’s many contributions and to have relied on him as a valued advisor.”