Don't Let Grandpa Get a New Girlfriend (Or Two)

And other lessons of paramount importance we can learn from the battle over Sumner Redstone’s media empire.

- Max Chafkin

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?

This was the state of play at the company that’s now known as Paramount Global (market capitalization: $15 billion), as recounted by James Stewart and Rachel Abrams in Unscripted: The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy (Penguin Press, $32). Their torrid account of the fight between Shari and the attendants, suitors, and prospective heirs vying for control of Paramount from beside Sumner’s sickbed doubles as an indictment of the moral rot within the entertainment industry and offers a subtle suggestion of what it will take to cut it out.