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Unscripted: The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy
The instant New York Times bestseller!
"Addicted to Succession? Well, here's the real thing." - The Hollywood Reporter
"Jaw-dropping . . . an epic tale of toxic wealth and greed populated by connivers and manipulators." -The New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice
The shocking inside story of the struggle for power and control at Paramount Global, the multibillion-dollar entertainment empire controlled by the Redstone family, and the dysfunction, misconduct, and deceit that threatened the future of the company, from the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists who first broke the news
In 2016, the fate of Paramount Global-the multibillion-dollar entertainment empire that includes Paramount, CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, Showtime, and Simon & Schuster-hung precariously in the balance. Its founder and head, ninety-three-year-old Sumner M. Redstone, was facing a very public lawsuit brought by a former romantic companion, Manuela Herzer-a lawsuit that placed Sumner's deteriorating health and questionable judgment under a harsh light.
As one of the last in a long line of all-powerful media moguls, Sumner had been a relentlessly demanding boss, and an even more demanding father. When his daughter, Shari, took control of her father's business, she faced the hostility of boards and management who for years had heard Sumner disparage her. Les Moonves, the popular CEO of CBS, felt particularly threatened and schemed with his allies on the board to strip Shari of power. But while he publicly battled Shari, news began to leak that Moonves had been involved in multiple instances of sexual misconduct, and he began working behind the scenes to try to make the stories disappear.
Unscripted is an explosive and unvarnished look at the usually secret inner workings of two public companies, their boards of directors, and a wealthy, dysfunctional family in the throes of seismic changes, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams. Through the microcosm of Paramount, whose once victorious business model of cable fees and ticket sales is crumbling under the assault of technological advances, and whose workplace is undergoing radical change in the wake of #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, and a distaste for the old guard, Stewart and Abrams lay bare the battle for power at any price-and the carnage that ensued.
"Addicted to Succession? Well, here's the real thing." - The Hollywood Reporter
"Jaw-dropping . . . an epic tale of toxic wealth and greed populated by connivers and manipulators." -The New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice
The shocking inside story of the struggle for power and control at Paramount Global, the multibillion-dollar entertainment empire controlled by the Redstone family, and the dysfunction, misconduct, and deceit that threatened the future of the company, from the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists who first broke the news
In 2016, the fate of Paramount Global-the multibillion-dollar entertainment empire that includes Paramount, CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, Showtime, and Simon & Schuster-hung precariously in the balance. Its founder and head, ninety-three-year-old Sumner M. Redstone, was facing a very public lawsuit brought by a former romantic companion, Manuela Herzer-a lawsuit that placed Sumner's deteriorating health and questionable judgment under a harsh light.
As one of the last in a long line of all-powerful media moguls, Sumner had been a relentlessly demanding boss, and an even more demanding father. When his daughter, Shari, took control of her father's business, she faced the hostility of boards and management who for years had heard Sumner disparage her. Les Moonves, the popular CEO of CBS, felt particularly threatened and schemed with his allies on the board to strip Shari of power. But while he publicly battled Shari, news began to leak that Moonves had been involved in multiple instances of sexual misconduct, and he began working behind the scenes to try to make the stories disappear.
Unscripted is an explosive and unvarnished look at the usually secret inner workings of two public companies, their boards of directors, and a wealthy, dysfunctional family in the throes of seismic changes, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams. Through the microcosm of Paramount, whose once victorious business model of cable fees and ticket sales is crumbling under the assault of technological advances, and whose workplace is undergoing radical change in the wake of #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, and a distaste for the old guard, Stewart and Abrams lay bare the battle for power at any price-and the carnage that ensued.
Editorial Reviews
"Redstone has found his Ishmael in James B. Stewart, who has ventured once more into the corporate depths and returned, he writes, with ‘an astonishing saga of sex, lies, and betrayal.' His new book, Unscripted: The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy, written with New York Times media reporter Rachel Abrams, joins his earlier probing work on the Walt Disney Co., insider trading, corporate lawyers and the posh netherworld of American business. Imagine a mash-up of King Lear and Weekend at Bernie's, the 1989 movie comedy about two scamps who prop up a cadaver so they can enjoy a weekend at his beach house, with Redstone starring in both title roles." -The Wall Street Journal
"A delicious treat . . . Unscripted is a model of how gracefully to tell the most grotesque of stories: that of the final years of Sumner Redstone . . . I lost some sleep unable to put this book down." - Adam Davidson, New York Times Book Review
"Addicted to Succession? Well, here's the real thing." -The Hollywood Reporter
"Jaw-dropping . . . an epic tale of toxic wealth and greed populated by connivers and manipulators." -The New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice
"Has a business book ever made you blush? . . . There's the 90-something billionaire with still-active ‘sexual appetites'; the scheming mistresses; threesomes; parked-car encounters; a Sedona love nest; a chief executive who allegedly forced himself on multiple victims; a stolen laptop; shady private investigators; and a cast of characters straight off MTV or another Redstone cable channel. Mixing tight financial reporting with soap-operatic twists and turns, Unscripted makes the amped-up historical fiction of Babylon feel downright chaste by comparison . . . Media insiders and those who followed the Redstone saga will eat this reporting-and some of the other, more comical twists that populate the book-up . . . Unscripted
"A delicious treat . . . Unscripted is a model of how gracefully to tell the most grotesque of stories: that of the final years of Sumner Redstone . . . I lost some sleep unable to put this book down." - Adam Davidson, New York Times Book Review
"Addicted to Succession? Well, here's the real thing." -The Hollywood Reporter
"Jaw-dropping . . . an epic tale of toxic wealth and greed populated by connivers and manipulators." -The New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice
"Has a business book ever made you blush? . . . There's the 90-something billionaire with still-active ‘sexual appetites'; the scheming mistresses; threesomes; parked-car encounters; a Sedona love nest; a chief executive who allegedly forced himself on multiple victims; a stolen laptop; shady private investigators; and a cast of characters straight off MTV or another Redstone cable channel. Mixing tight financial reporting with soap-operatic twists and turns, Unscripted makes the amped-up historical fiction of Babylon feel downright chaste by comparison . . . Media insiders and those who followed the Redstone saga will eat this reporting-and some of the other, more comical twists that populate the book-up . . . Unscripted
Readers Top Reviews
A. Falk Bob Fle
James B. Stewart has had my attention since the publication of "Den of Thieves". This book was hyped as a boardroom drama but instead the book is a tawdry recap of Sumner Redstone's various relationships with young women and the ways he hurt his family. Also, tell me if this sounds familiar, a very wealthy man that had sycophants enabling his behavior. Made it to the end but horribly disappointing.
green69Avid Reader
I just got the book. Excellent details in the book.
JayefromJersey
I saw the two authors on a tv show this morning talking about their book. I could not believe the interview and could not wait to order this book. I have not stopped reading it since this am.
Short Excerpt Teaser
PREFACE
"I can say every report about CBS' toxic work environment is true," the October 2018 email to The New York Times tip line read. "This case enrages me so much, and it breaks my heart to look behind the curtain and see the ugliness and moral bankruptcy of institutions and people I admired since childhood."
The "case" was that of CBS chairman and chief executive Leslie Moonves. Moonves had resigned just a month earlier, the same day The New Yorker published the second of two articles detailing the accounts of twelve women accusing him of unwanted sexual advances. CBS had launched an internal investigation to determine, among other issues, whether Moonves should receive $120 million in severance pay. In many ways Moonves's sudden departure had been only the beginning of the story.
At the Times, the two of us-media reporter Rachel Abrams and business columnist James B. Stewart-were separately pursuing different angles. Rachel, who'd contributed to Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey's Pulitzer Prize–winning coverage of movie executive Harvey Weinstein, was focusing on the CBS internal investigation.
Was the company really trying to get to the bottom of what had happened, or-as with so many self‑directed corporate investigations-was it trying to sweep the scandal under the rug and protect other powerful interests? James was exploring the inner workings of the CBS board and how it had handled the accusations against its chief executive.
After the email landed in the Times's "tip jar," a screener forwarded it to Jim Windolf, the Times's media editor. He in turn sent it to Rachel. She was heading out that day when she passed James at his desk in the Times's third‑floor newsroom. They barely knew each other, but Rachel paused because she'd heard he, too, was looking into Moonves and CBS. She described the email, and he was excited: the source sounded like someone who could both confirm and expand upon what he was hearing from other people, which was that the real reasons for Moonves's departure had been far more intriguing than reported and had even involved an attempt at extortion.
Rachel spoke to the source that evening. Her impression was that the source's motive for reaching out and putting a career at risk was altruistic: having closely followed the #MeToo movement, this person didn't want to see men get away with abusing their power by exploiting women and then covering it up. Rachel felt the source was equally interested in the structures that enabled such behavior-in this case a public corporation. She was confident the source had no allegiance to any of the warring factions at CBS.
This source became one of a number of people who turned over hundreds of pages of original material-emails, texts, interview notes, internal reports-documenting an astonishing saga of sex, lies, and betrayal at the highest levels of a major corporation.
At CBS, the #MeToo movement had collided explosively with the corporate boardroom. Moonves was the first chief executive of a major publicly traded company forced to resign for predatory sexual conduct. (The much smaller Weinstein Company was privately owned.)
And Moonves wasn't just any chief executive. As a leading media and entertainment company with a vaunted news division, CBS had an outsize influence on American politics and culture. Under Moonves's leadership, the CBS network had gone from last to first place in the ratings and stayed there for over ten years. CBS stock had more than doubled in price. The Hollywood Reporter named Moonves the most powerful person in entertainment. He had earned over $700 million during his tenure, making him one of the highest‑paid chief executives in the country.
For all his power and influence, Moonves still reported to a board of directors with the power to hire, fire, or otherwise discipline or reward him. At CBS, members of the board included a former secretary of defense, a former head of the NAACP, the former dean of Harvard Law School, and an Academy Award–winning film producer. But they could be replaced by a controlling shareholder that exercised 80 percent of the shareholders' voting rights.
That controlling shareholder was National Amusements Incorporated, a movie theater chain and holding company for a media empire assembled by the ninety‑five‑year‑old and increasingly infirm Sumner M. Redstone. Sumner owned...
"I can say every report about CBS' toxic work environment is true," the October 2018 email to The New York Times tip line read. "This case enrages me so much, and it breaks my heart to look behind the curtain and see the ugliness and moral bankruptcy of institutions and people I admired since childhood."
The "case" was that of CBS chairman and chief executive Leslie Moonves. Moonves had resigned just a month earlier, the same day The New Yorker published the second of two articles detailing the accounts of twelve women accusing him of unwanted sexual advances. CBS had launched an internal investigation to determine, among other issues, whether Moonves should receive $120 million in severance pay. In many ways Moonves's sudden departure had been only the beginning of the story.
At the Times, the two of us-media reporter Rachel Abrams and business columnist James B. Stewart-were separately pursuing different angles. Rachel, who'd contributed to Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey's Pulitzer Prize–winning coverage of movie executive Harvey Weinstein, was focusing on the CBS internal investigation.
Was the company really trying to get to the bottom of what had happened, or-as with so many self‑directed corporate investigations-was it trying to sweep the scandal under the rug and protect other powerful interests? James was exploring the inner workings of the CBS board and how it had handled the accusations against its chief executive.
After the email landed in the Times's "tip jar," a screener forwarded it to Jim Windolf, the Times's media editor. He in turn sent it to Rachel. She was heading out that day when she passed James at his desk in the Times's third‑floor newsroom. They barely knew each other, but Rachel paused because she'd heard he, too, was looking into Moonves and CBS. She described the email, and he was excited: the source sounded like someone who could both confirm and expand upon what he was hearing from other people, which was that the real reasons for Moonves's departure had been far more intriguing than reported and had even involved an attempt at extortion.
Rachel spoke to the source that evening. Her impression was that the source's motive for reaching out and putting a career at risk was altruistic: having closely followed the #MeToo movement, this person didn't want to see men get away with abusing their power by exploiting women and then covering it up. Rachel felt the source was equally interested in the structures that enabled such behavior-in this case a public corporation. She was confident the source had no allegiance to any of the warring factions at CBS.
This source became one of a number of people who turned over hundreds of pages of original material-emails, texts, interview notes, internal reports-documenting an astonishing saga of sex, lies, and betrayal at the highest levels of a major corporation.
At CBS, the #MeToo movement had collided explosively with the corporate boardroom. Moonves was the first chief executive of a major publicly traded company forced to resign for predatory sexual conduct. (The much smaller Weinstein Company was privately owned.)
And Moonves wasn't just any chief executive. As a leading media and entertainment company with a vaunted news division, CBS had an outsize influence on American politics and culture. Under Moonves's leadership, the CBS network had gone from last to first place in the ratings and stayed there for over ten years. CBS stock had more than doubled in price. The Hollywood Reporter named Moonves the most powerful person in entertainment. He had earned over $700 million during his tenure, making him one of the highest‑paid chief executives in the country.
For all his power and influence, Moonves still reported to a board of directors with the power to hire, fire, or otherwise discipline or reward him. At CBS, members of the board included a former secretary of defense, a former head of the NAACP, the former dean of Harvard Law School, and an Academy Award–winning film producer. But they could be replaced by a controlling shareholder that exercised 80 percent of the shareholders' voting rights.
That controlling shareholder was National Amusements Incorporated, a movie theater chain and holding company for a media empire assembled by the ninety‑five‑year‑old and increasingly infirm Sumner M. Redstone. Sumner owned...
