Ex-Paramount president Jeff Shell personally paid nothing to R.J. Cipriani to settle the scorched-earth lawsuit between the two men, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
”He did not pay a single cent,” said a person familiar with the situation. “Nothing.” A source, however, confirms that Cipriani was paid off, just not by Shell or Paramount.
Patricia Glaser, a veteran industry litigator who had represented both men separately in unrelated matters and arranged a meeting between the two sides in 2024, offered Cipriani $150,000 of her own money to resolve the dispute, according to his lawsuit. He rebuffed that offer. The lawyer, who declined to comment for this story, later offered to pay more than $1 million, said a person with knowledge of the situation. The final settlement figure remains unknown.
At the time of their initial meeting, Shell suspected Cipriani of orchestrating a campaign to undermine his comeback at Paramount. Glaser set up the talks for the two sides to reach a truce.
That meeting became the foundation of a lawsuit from Cipriani, who claimed that Shell solicited his advice in the wake of the latter’s 2023 departure from NBCUniversal for alleged sexual harassment. The high-stakes gambler, who didn’t respond to a request for comment, alleged that Shell subsequently shared confidential information with him to suppress negative stories and to circulate favorable coverage for Paramount. One example: details about the timing and structure of Paramount’s $7.7 billion media rights deal with the Ultimate Fighting Championship almost a month before its August 2025 announcement
In a cross complaint, Shell accused Cipriani of exploiting the access that Glaser had brokered. This includes pestering him to pick up Roku’s Spanish-language series Serenata de las Estrellas.
In his lawsuit, Shell said he repeatedly declined but agreed to meet Cipriani at Glaser’s recommendation. During a confrontation earlier this year, Cipriani claimed that he had been working for Shell for 18 months and demanded payment.
Shell’s cross complaint referenced Glaser dozens of times, though she wasn’t a defendant in the case. Across her multidecade career, she’s represented Conan O’Brien, Harvey Weinstein and Ron Meyer, among several others.