February 14, 2023 • 49 mins
The Pulitzer Prize-winning authors of Unscripted, James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams, tell the story behind their explosive new book, which hits shelves this week. The jaw-dropping drama of billionaire Sumner Redstone, once the controller of a vast entertainment empire, is a chilling tale of a sexually aggressive, power-hungry man who competed ruthlessly with everyone — including his own daughter.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi everyone, I'm Katie Curic and this this next question.
You know, when it comes to journalism, it can't get
much better than my next two guests. They are two
Pulitzer Prize winners who have broken story after story after story.
James B. Stewart has already written fourteen best selling books,
(00:22):
and now he's teamed up with a fellow New York
Times reporter for her first Their collaboration is called Unscripted.
It's out this week, and holy moley, it is very juicy.
It reads like a crazy slash sexy HBO drama you
can't stop binging. With a full account of the story
(00:42):
behind the multibillion dollar entertainment company, Paramount Global and the
hard to believe drama of the family behind it, the
red Stones. This story goes way beyond succession. Well, I've
been joking that this is King Lear meets Weekend at Bernie's.
You'll year about the anonymous tip that set this book
(01:02):
in motion, Well, Rachel's confidential source. It's probably the single
most productive source I've ever encountered in my decades of reporting.
How Sumner Redstone became such a ruthless businessman he had
to win every single thing that he did. I think,
like a lot of these people, he was insecure. You know,
his early life, his mother was a dominating figure. How
(01:24):
that competitive drive destroyed his relationship with his own daughter, Sherry.
This is a guy who withheld his love from his
own child, and his child, Cherry Redstone, yearned for it
until the day he died. And how Redstone's insatiable sexual
appetite man this guy was a serious horn dog, prompted
(01:45):
his own grandson to enlist the help of a millionaire matchmaker.
Sumner was dating, you know, everyone acrossed his path, including
his grandson's girlfriends, and so his grandson actually set him up.
Of all people, with Patti's or the millionaire matchmaker of
reality TV fame will also learn more about the downfall
(02:06):
of my old boss, Let's move vest and what finally
did him in. I'm sure you can't wait to listen,
But before we get to that conversation, I'm excited to
quickly tell you about Wake Up Call. It's our daily
newsletter delivered to your inbox Monday through Saturday, bright and early.
In it, we break down the top news stories of
(02:28):
the day, We answer your pressing questions, and we scour
the Internet for the best entertainment tip bits, streaming recommendations, recipes,
and health and wellness tips. It's a one stop shop
for smart, busy people like you. This week on wake
Up Call, we're uncovering the science behind why people cheat.
We'll bring you interviews with Felicia Rosario and Daniel Levin.
(02:51):
They're featured in hulu Stolen Youth docuseries about the cult
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read a out of conversation I had with my nutritionists
about things you should be eating and not drinking to
reduce your risk of cancer. To subscribe to wake Up Call,
go to the link in the description below this episode.
(03:12):
It's right there in your podcast app or visit us
at Katie currect dot com. Now, Jim and Rachel with
all the dirt on Sumner Redstone, Where do we begin?
You too? I mean, this is very dishy, but I
had to wonder, do you think the average person really
(03:33):
gives a flying you know what about CBS, Viacom and
Sumner Redstone. Jim, I'll start with you. Well, I don't
think that matters because the story is about much more
than particular companies or even these particular characters to Austin
you Now, I think we both saw this as it's
a family drama. It's a story about a father and
(03:55):
a daughter. It's about a woman being thrust into the
male arc tank of Hollywood and surmounting one obstacle after another.
And you know other people have compared to Succession. I
think it goes way beyond Succession. It's entertaining, but I
think it is like the novels are I hope it's
very revealing about our times. It's almost Shakespearean in many
(04:17):
ways with I don't even know all the Shakespearean plays
that could be bundled up and thrown into this one.
And I thought about it's like it's like Succession, Billions
and Dynasty all rolled into one. Rachel, have I've forgotten
any drama? Well, I've been joking that this is King
Lear meets Weekend at Bernie's. How did you all get together?
(04:42):
And two fantastic reporters, I might add, and I understand
that an anonymous tip really brought you two together. Tell
me how this collaboration began and really kind of brought
your respective investigative reporting skills into one project. Rachel, How
(05:04):
did this happen? I mean, it's remarkable. Jim and I
I don't think we'd ever have a conversation before we
started working together. And I had been doing a lot
of me too reporting for The Times. Jim obviously is
an esteemed business journalist and columnist, and our paths had
just not intersected. And an anonymous tip came through the
(05:24):
New York Times tipline and it was forwarded to me
because it had to do with CBS, and I had
been working on some investigations about CBS and CBS is
investigation to its culture, and the person who emailed us,
it was very clear immediately was in a position to
just have a treasure trove of information, text messages, emails,
(05:45):
things that ultimately really led to us doing this book together.
But what happened was, you know, this email comes in
and an editor at the time says, you know, I
think Jim Stewart is working on something very similar. He's
also got a tip about something going on at at CBS,
and you really should talk to him. And so Jim
is a very respected, towering figure in our industry, and
(06:06):
I was almost a little bit nervous to talk to him,
but we both had the good fortune that he sat
on the outside aisle. So as I was walking home
one day and I already had my coat on, I
just said, well to stop by his desk and ask.
And I stopped and I said, you know here, you're
working on the CBS store and explained a little bit.
And that's how this came together. We ended up writing
stories for The Times, and it was very clear that
there was way more to the story that deserved a book, basically,
(06:29):
and you had a lot of the goods and Jim,
I'm sure you were like, I need to bring this
woman in and work on this together. Well, Rachel's confidential source,
I think his Rachel's source, because they really developed a relationship.
It's probably the single most productive source I've ever encountered
in my decades of reporting. I mean, she handed over
(06:52):
an immense amount of testimony, of documents of text and emails.
As Rachel said, and we had other confidential sources too,
but it really enabled us to let the reader be
a fly on the wall and these amazing scenes no
that I, as a journalist have never been able to
do before. I'm in the CBS boardroom, the comments and oh,
(07:12):
my god, the comments like blew my mind. Or in
the Sumner Redstone mansion, which, by the way, where everything
was recorded in videotaped, you're a fly on the wall
when Sumner Redstone like kicks out his living girlfriends. I mean,
it's astonishingly direct material that we were able to weave
into the story. Of course, I'm dying to know who
(07:34):
the source was, and I know if you told me,
you'd have to kill me. But boy, lucky you to
have access to all of this. Well, let's take a
step back, though, and I want you all to talk
about Sumner Redstone, who I had the pleasure of interviewing
once when I was at the Today Show. Who is
this guy who wants to take that Sumner maybe the
(07:57):
last of the old time moguls, and some way you
might want to hope he was the last of the
old time moguls because he assembled a multibillion dollar empire,
and you know, you have to admire this. He started
with a few drive in movie theaters outside of Boston,
where he was born, and he snapped up other companies.
He bought vot Coom, which owned a lot of cable channels, MTV,
(08:20):
Cartoon Network, Uh, you know, very successful cable channels. He
then went on to buy CBS, the broadcast network. He
added Paramount Movie Studio, so he had a fully integrated
media empire long before a lot of other people did.
But interestingly, he really descended on Hollywood as a multibillionaire
mogul when he was aged seventies six. Really he was
(08:42):
just getting started. I don't remember how ally when you
interviewed him, but you know, he was getting up there.
And you know, a lot of this story takes place
when he's in his nineties and still, you know, one
of the most powerful and richest media moguls on the planet.
More juicy tidbits about Sumner Stone and the whole gang
at Viacom right after this, Rachel, How did people treat
(09:17):
Sumner Redstone initially? Because he really was a fish out
of water, this guy from Boston, and boy, there are
a lot of stories about him, which we'll get into
in a moment. But was he considered an outsider and
how did people take to him initially? Well, he certainly
appeared like an outsider. I mean, as we detail in
(09:37):
the book, his appearance alone, you know, just a little
bit sloppy, the hair, you know that he looked like
it came from a bottle. Frumpy, right, kind of frump, yes,
kind of frumpy. This was not a man who looked
like a polished movie executive. He didn't carry himself the
way that less Moon invested. For example, he didn't have
less as Veneers. For example, he did not have less
(09:58):
as Veneers. But he had the same kind of ambition. Uh.
Sumner Redstone was ruthless, and you know, I have to
say this is really an example of he forced people
to take him seriously because he had the money. He
had the money and the drive and the power. So
you know, he was able to push a lot of
stuff through just on on sheer dint of will alone.
We have the guest listed his various birthday parties, and
(10:20):
you know every a list person is there. You know,
you've got enough money in power in Hollywood. You know,
at one point he threw Tom Cruise off the Paramount
lot and then he brought him back, and then Tom
Cruise is there at his birthday party. I mean that
Sumner could get anybody he wanted at any time. Tell
me a little bit about his personality. You talk about
him being ruthless, but how did he operate out in
(10:44):
the world gym. Well, he was intensely competitive and he
had to win, including you know, a tennis game with
his own daughter. He was curious when she she beat him.
He had to win every single thing that he did.
I mean, all of other people pondered the psychology of
that at the same time. I think, like a lot
of these people, he was insecure. You know, his early life,
(11:06):
his mother was a dominating figure. She wouldn't let him date.
He's studied all the time, and he's sort of you know, again,
he hit Hollywood at age seventy six, and he's sort
of sort of relived what for most people would be
an adolescence. He's like dating every good looking woman who
crossed his path. And by the way, he could get
people to come to his party, well, he could get
(11:27):
pretty much anybody wanted to go on a date with him,
given his money and power. Ye, we'll talk about that
that in a moment, Rachel. But for people who are
not necessarily well versed on Viacom and all the ins
and outs of that company, how did he go from
owning a few movie theaters to being this big maca
(11:50):
out in Hollywood? Rachel? Uh, he basically went on a
like I said, a ruthless acquisitions. I mean one of
his big wins was MTV. And and I remember this
because MTV was this kind of rebellious um little company
that ran music videos and put musicians on the air
that no one had ever heard of. People would executives
(12:11):
would go to the office in tennis shoes and jeans.
You know, this was not a corporate environment. And and
this was something you know, as Jim said, sum, there
was a guy who had to win at any cost
and he had to have MTV over the objections of
some of the executives there. And that is I would say,
like one of the biggest most recognizable brands that's in
the Viacom empire. I mean take me from the beginning, though.
(12:33):
You know, this guy's in Boston, he owns these movie theaters.
How did he get from Boston to Hollywood. Well, it's
it's pretty simple, a tourd to John Bonds. Uh. He
borrowed money, he used leverage. He claims to have invented
in Multiplux. He took the drave Ins and he turned
them into many movies, showing at once kind of anachronism. Now,
(12:54):
maybe but at the time that was an innovation. But
once he had the theaters under his belt and went
on his his buying spree, it was borrowed money, and
it was a time when most people were afraid to
do that. But he hooked up with Michael Milken. Michael
Milken befriended many sort of outsiders who had the brazenness
to borrow the money and take the plunge. One of
Sunder's proudest moments was when he outbid and beat Barry
(13:18):
Diller to get the Paramount studio. And for somebody who
started with drive in theaters to get Paramount, which when
was one of the premier studios that the mount everest
of Hollywood. From his perspective, was an unbelievable achievement, which,
by the way, figures in the story because the last
thing he wanted to do was ever give up Paramount.
There's a reason now the whole company is called Paramount. Ultimately,
(13:40):
where did he land and what did he have in
his purview? Sure he landed at the top of the mountain.
At one point, Viacom was one of the most important
media companies of its time. It had, as I mentioned, MTV,
but it also had Nickelodeon, which has really fallen from grace,
But Nickelodeon was was printing money at one point at
its height. Um, he also had CBS, of course, and
(14:03):
you know, this was a guy who looked at Rupert
Murdoch and was jealous, you know, he wanted to be
that big And Jim, I'm sure you have something to
add about to sort of buy a comet at its peak, Well,
I had these very valuable cable channels, and until pretty recently,
cable channels was just a printing press for money. Now,
because the cable bondle, consumers bought a whole bundle, whether
they watched it or or not, they were paying, you know,
(14:24):
for MTV, they're paying for Comedy Center, they're paying for Nickelodeon.
There has never ever been a media model that was
more profitable than what turned into the cable monk. But
when Sumner Redstone divided his assets into the CBS business
on one hand and the Vacom business on the other,
vot Coom was the high growth company. And also, you know,
we obviously can't get inside less Moon VISs mind entirely,
(14:47):
although our text messages from him, you know, come really close.
But when Sumner Redstone split those two companies, CBS and Viacom,
Moonbus was furious that he got the sort of the
also rants, which was CBS. It was last in the
race eetings. It was not doing well, and you have
to imagine that because under him it went to the
most consistently watched broadcast network, which factors into our story
(15:10):
because you'd have to imagine that if he took it
from last ran to that. Then when Sherry Redstone comes
in and starts saying, oh, I want to merge the companies.
I want to do this, I want to do that,
you know he's probably thinking what, but I you know,
I fixed this place. Let's talk about the relationship with
Sumner Redstone and his daughter, because, as you mentioned earlier,
this is really a human drama and a real succession story.
(15:34):
This is a guy who withheld his love from his
own child, and his child, Cherry Redstone, yearned for it
until the day he died. And I think a lot
of people can relate to the idea of having sort
of an imperial parent who is withholding at times and
who gives out love sparingly and affection sparingly. And it
can also be incredibly harsh. I mean, the kind of
(15:56):
the kind of yearning for approval and affection that push
and pull and take away creates really wasn't play here.
And I think it's a played a lot of families.
And one of the reasons why she was sort of
reluctant to be part of her father's empire was because
she has maintained she wanted to be with her own children.
And you know, you'd have to wonder was that, in
(16:16):
some way an attempt to think, well, you know, I
don't want to repeat the same dynamics that that I
had to suffer through with my dad. I'd have to say,
I'd call this an abusive relationship myself. I mean, some nerve,
for example, would write emails and he would send them
to share with horrible language and I'm not going to
(16:37):
say in this interview horrible, and then he would copy
them to all VACOM and CBOUS executives and board members,
and so they read the same things that he was
sending to Sherry, which of course made her cry. He
didn't show up and she got, you know, the Woman
of the Year award in New York. He he sent
an open letter criticizing her that was printed in Forbes.
(16:58):
She read that and she cried it. You know, there's
a lot written about fathers and sons and mothers and sons.
I don't think the complicated relationships that fathers and daughters
have been explored nearly as much. And here you see
an aging patriarch who, on the one hand, is horribly
sexist and critical of his children by the way he
(17:19):
drove his son away completely and took up these surrogate sons,
and then at the same time he wants someone in
the family to carry on the family name. It's they
see that tension going back and forth throughout the story.
Why do you think he was so ugly to Shay Rachel?
I mean, where did that come from? This abusive, hateful,
(17:43):
cruel behavior towards his own daughter. Well, I think a
lot of it is what Jim said earlier, that this
is a guy who had to win at every cost,
and he was incapable of being happy for his own
kid if it cost him something. I think that's sort
of the key here. And this is also a man
who was known for firing executives if the stock dropped
(18:03):
like I don't know, half a cent or something. This
this guy, I think sort of the ruthlessness in business.
He also really played out with his his dynamic with
his daughter. Why you know, who's to say, but it's
certainly it's certainly not a typical father daughter relationship or
father or parent daughter. Yeah. You know, I think readers
can you know, from their own experience and kind of
(18:25):
see what's going on there. But somebody was the kind
of person, no matter who it was, if somebody else
succeeded in a way that somehow might diminish his accomplishments
or stature, he hated and resented that. So when Sherry
got praised from the outside, some of his immediate response was, well,
wait a minute, I'm the one who built this company.
I gave them everything that they've got, and you know
(18:47):
there's a whiff in there that having made them incredibly wealthy,
he had to build it all himself. He had these
harsh parents, had the demanding mother, and they you know,
they had it kind of handed to them on the
silver platter created by by him, and so to the
extent they started succeeded on their own. He lashed out,
(19:08):
We're going to talk about sort of what happened with
the business and with Sherry in a moment. But we
have to talk about Sumner's insatiable sexual appetite because this
is something Honestly, it's like what, um, I know that
your book makes clear that Sumner's libido would not slow
(19:29):
down as he got older. Let's talk about his attitude
toward women in general, and then we'll get into the
nitty gritty of some of those conquests. I mean, his
attitude in a word, was awful. And you know, for
anybody wondering how how companies like CBS or Weinstein Company
or really any companies could have had systemic problems, inherent
(19:53):
cultural problems with women, with covering up misconduct, I mean,
look no further than the way some of these guys
acted in their personal lives. Like to think that that
is divorced from their attitudes toward women in the workplace
is I think really a big misconception. And he treated
women like they were interchangeable, like they were for sale.
(20:13):
I mean, within our book, you can we detail a
lot of the women coming in and out of the mansion,
women getting paid. At one point, he tries to go
after his grandson's girlfriend in the book, so which is
a crazy story and of itself that we write about. So,
you know, to to to a guy like Summer, nothing
was off limits. And it's that sense of entitlement that
I think it's a lot of these guys into trouble.
(20:35):
Why didn't he ever get me to Jim Well? I
think his misconduct was usually accompanied by a lot of money.
I mean, I mean millions of dollars a million here,
ten million there, seven million to this woman. And you know,
I don't know, I mean there was certainly ample material there.
(20:58):
And you know, Rachel, I've talked a lot about about this.
It's interesting that as this mogul and again and elderly,
when when he got to Hollywood, a lot of this
seems to have been so important to him more to
impress his cronies. You know, he was he was his
best friend. I put that in clothes because who knows
these people have ever actually had any real friends. But
Robert Evans, who was, you know, the legendary producer who
(21:22):
was a notorious womanizer, always bragging about his conquest, and
this other group of sort of aging moguls. It was
almost like he just wanted to be able to like
appear with this beautiful blonde on his armor, a gorgeous woman.
And and again I think the reason nobody was blowing
the whistle even now, I mean, Rachel can testify to
(21:42):
this because she did a lot of this work. You know,
these women did not want to talk. It wasn't like, oh,
we're eager to tell what happened with some of the
red stuff. Oh No. There was a notorious story about
him even before I interviewed him, when there was the
fire at the Copley Plot, and of course this led
to his disfigured hand. What was the scene there? Um,
(22:08):
he was there with a mistress, girlfriend mistress. He was
there at the Copley Plaza hotel with with somebody who
was not his wife. They both escaped out the window.
But a remarkable thing about it is it was decades
before that fact that he was actually in there and
escaped with a mistress was ever published. And the legend
of this is that he clung for dear life with
(22:29):
his hand and was able to continue clinging even as
the fire burned and disfigured his hands for the rest
of his life. And he would tell the story as
an example of how he could survive anything and how
strong his ambition was and his will to live. I mean,
this is also a guy who would say, only half
jokingly that he never expected to die, so why did
(22:49):
he need a succession plan. He confided in one of
his girlfriends that the reason he said that was not
so much that he actually thought he was going to
live forever, but that he feared a final reckoning with
his maker and that he was going to be judged
very harshly. It does show a certain self awareness that
(23:11):
his behavior was in many cases beyond the pale, and
I think what he might have been most afraid of
was being judged for how he treated his own children.
Two women figure quite largely in this book, and those
were women who were in Sumner's later life. Sherry Redstone
not so fondly named them S and M. Sydney Holland
(23:33):
and Manuela Herzer. Who were they and how did they
come to know Sumner? Well, Sumner was dating, you know,
everyone acrossed his path, including his grandson's girlfriends, and so
his grandson actually set him up, of all people, with
Patty Standing or the millionaire matchmaker of reality TV fame,
(23:53):
and she eventually that's going to be a great scene
in the series you guys, it's an so yeah, she should.
So she is the one who introduced him to Sydney
halland they were friends. And Sydney Holland had I guess
you could call it somewhat checkered past um. She had
been dating older wealthy men and Um, according to her,
(24:17):
they had a whirlwind courtship and in short order she
had a non carrot diamond ring on her finger and
moved into the mansion with Sumner. Sometime after that, one
of Sumner's previous girlfriends, who Robert Evans introduced him. There
should have been a warning flag right there. She was
having her house remodeled, paid for by Sumner, and she
(24:39):
decided to move into the mansion while the remodeling was
going on. As far as I know, the remodeling is
still going on because she stayed. So these two women
were now living in the mansion. Sydney was supposedly his
fiancee and girlfriend, and Manuela, his ex girlfriend, was now
just a close confidante and companion. But they were living
in there, and slow but surely they started getting their
(25:01):
hands on the estate plan, the trust plan, the bank accounts,
the shareholders, and again to me, when the startling revelations
in the book. On one day alone, they got him
to sell all the CBS stock, which he said he
never would do, and he made a wire transfer of
ninety million dollars to the two of them that afternoon.
And in fact, when he died, didn't they share a
(25:25):
hundred and fifty million dollars of his wealth. By the
time Always said and done, they had managed to separate
over a hundred fifty million dollars from him. And that,
by the way, maybe an understate. You know, we can't
say to the penny how much there meant. It may
have been many millions more than that. There was also
Maliah and lynd She was a flight attendant on one
(25:45):
of his private jets. How would you describe their relationship
Stockholm syndrome. I mean, this was this was a woman
who was not making a ton of money. I mean,
it would pay well to work on the corporate jet.
But she she works on this thing and she counters Redstone,
who was known for just being horrific to the people
that worked for him, especially people on his planes, by
(26:05):
the way, and she flies with him one day and
he's just alternating between being abusive to her cursing at
her and hitting on her in full view by the
way of his guests who don't really do much of anything,
And she, of course is worried that about her job
and subsequently does not get invited back to any more
flights on the corporate jet, which was an important source
of income, and he keeps dangling job prospects for her.
(26:29):
You know, if you have come have dinner with me
and maybe we can talk about, you know, getting back
on the plane. You know, that's why I say Stockholm syndrome,
because she didn't really have a lot of good choices.
I mean, what else is you gonna do but the
billionaire saying maybe we'll give you work again. And Sydney
and Manuela plotted against her, right Jim, Yeah, you know,
(26:49):
Sydney and Manuela were not only tolerant but sort of
encouraged him to like have you know, I know how
to put this nicely, but shall we say encounters with
other women who then got money, because that kind of
took some of the pressure off them, I think, but
so they wouldn't have to sleep with them. Yes, I mean,
there were so many women who were brought into that
(27:10):
mansion and then you know, they were getting these sacks
full of you know, cash, and they you know, hand
out a thousand dollars here, ten tho dollars. Anyway, that's
all document you can. You can see that in the book.
But well that was going on. The Maliah thing got
out of hand. I mean, sum are seen by all
apparent purposes to be completely in love with her, even
though we revealed that he did assault her. She would
(27:32):
show up on these red carpet things on Sumner's arm,
and that's exactly what he wanted, the image he wanted
to her job. But they got jealous about this, so
they hired a private detective and they followed her. She
at some point she was concerned about her safety, even
whether her life was threatened, and they convinced Sumner that
(27:53):
she was cheating on him and had another boyfriend. Was
she did, and he got all upset about that, and
they managed to break them up. I have to add
another show to this, and this is Sister Wives. I mean,
what the heck is going on? And if some are
is such a shrewd businessman, how was he manipulated and
(28:18):
bamboozled by these two women so easily? On a somber note,
one thing that was really upsetting to report on and
just listen to and think about is all the elder
abuse that is detailed in this book. And one of
the shocking, if not surprising, things that I think a
lot of people can relate to, is that the combination
of getting older, uh, wanting companionship, vulnerability, declining health, all
(28:43):
of these things make a person more vulnerable to outside influences.
I was really shocked that sum To Redstone, for all
of his wealth and power and resources, did not have
more guardrails up around him to prevent people like this
from getting in and just going back to the millionaire
matchmaker for a second, for your most of your audience
maybe has not does not understand who this person is.
(29:05):
This is a woman who had a Bravo reality show
where women would be corralled into a bar and so
just for the opportunity to meet one so called millionaire.
So this was not like a classy matchmaking service. This
was not the kind of matchmaking service that you think
the rich and powerful billionaires availed themselves of, you know,
the kind of people that don't have even have a website.
(29:26):
So the idea that some no Redstone would turn to
her that his family would encourage him to use a
service like this. I mean, it just feels like there
were no protections. Well, clearly in these situations, Jim, mostly
it's your children who are going to protect you, right,
And he's so alienated. I mean, who is the first
line of defense when someone's getting older. It's someone's kids
(29:48):
who are going to protect that person when they're faculty
start to falter. And he didn't have those relationships, right, Jim.
In fact, that you see, he made his healthcare proxy
first his of surrogate's son, the chief executive of Vogkom,
one of his companies, and then after that he made
Manuela hurts Or the companion the healthcare proxy rather than
(30:10):
his own daughter. And you know, I think Rachel makes
a good point. You know, as he got older, he declined,
and we we gained access to previously confidential evaluations of
his mental state. And this is true. I think of
so many people as they you know, age, it's not
a clear cut case of mental competence or not. It's
a gray area in between. It is sad to read
(30:33):
this report when you know what he was like at
his peak, but clearly he was in decline. He was
emotionally vulnerable, and these two women, whether it was instinct
or whether they you know, knew how to do this,
preyed on his vulnerabilities. They isolated him from the rest
of the world. They isolated him from his family, They
banned calls into the house, they changed bone numbers, they
(30:54):
did everything to cut him off from anyone except them.
And you can see how successful it was. I think
one of the shocking things in the book is how
close Sydney and Manuela came to gaining control of the
entire empire. And are they going to face any repercussions
for this behavior? I mean, what happened to them? Well,
(31:16):
we should point out that they've never been charged with
a crime. You know, the authorities did investigate claims of
elder abuse, they did not find any wrongdoing. Are they
going to face any consequences? I mean, so far, they
seemed to swan around Los Angeles, you know, chairing up
boards and running charities, and they're described by all these
precigious institutions and their biographies as you know, accomplished philanthropists.
(31:37):
So so far it seems like they've made out really
pretty well with a lot of money and and and
some some measure of respect and acceptance. Yeah, I would
add that that so called investigation and elder abuse was
a joke. I mean, they sent Los Angeles Protective Services,
sent somebody out there, and all they did was interviewed
Sunder himself with its lawyer and caregiver is standing right there.
(31:59):
They didn't interview any of the nurses or any of
the people who filed the complaint number one. And secondly,
the Redstones did file suit an elder view suit against them,
seeking the return of some of these many millions they got.
But in the end, Sherry residentatoricularly she didn't want to
litigate this. She didn't care that much about the money.
She just wanted them out of her life. So they
ended up settling those cases, leaving their fortunes intact. I
(32:21):
can't believe people would have them on their boards. But
I guess money talks right. This book, more than anything,
really emphasizes that money cannot buy you happiness. I can
buy you a lot, But this is really a tale
of that. Anybody who's ever had to decide whether or
not to take a driver's license away from a parent,
or had to figure out whether to step in because
(32:42):
they were trying to figure out is my parents able
to to lead their own independent life. As Jim said,
this book, people will relate to this because it's not
all clear cut. We'll be back with more of Jim
and Rachel right after this. Let's move from the personal
(33:09):
to the professional. Obviously, in many ways, Sumner Redstone's professional
life was as juicy and drama filled as his personal life,
especially the fall of Less Moves, which I am particularly
interested in since he hired me to anchor the CBS
(33:30):
Evening News. It's astonishing to realize the extent to which
the CBS board protected him despite the damning evidence against him.
How do you explain that the CBS board was except
for those loyal to Sherry Redstone or picked by Sherry Redstone,
who were a minority, We're basically picked by less boons.
(33:51):
They were friends of his, they were cronies of his,
They were very strong supporters. They were in awe of Less.
I mean, unlike a Harvey Einstein, Les Moonves was running
a major public corporation and was doing it incredibly well.
He was named by the Hollywood reporters the most powerful
man in the media and entertainment world. Wall Street loved him.
(34:14):
So from strictly a shareholder perspective, you could see that
they were dazzled by him. But beyond that, they had
attitudes about women and so that, you know, frankly, are
pretty anachronistic by today's standards. And so first the allegations
came up, their immediate impulse was or there can't be
anything to that. Um, they said, well, we'll ask less.
So they asked less. He denies that. That the okay
(34:36):
end of that, we have nothing more to investigate. You know,
more allegations come up that you can't really refute and
there and now they're saying, oh, well, it all happened
a long time ago, or as one director, Arnold Cumblson
actually said, oh, we all did that. He he sent
an email that we saw that said if a hundred
more women came forward, we don't care less as our leader,
(34:59):
and we're ending by him. I remember reading that, I
think probably in your early reporting on this, right. Yeah,
it was just unbelievably blind loyalty and at the same
time suspicion of hostility of and absolutely no confidence in
Sharon Redstone. It's not coincidence that she is the daughter
and she's a woman and lessman that was very successful
(35:23):
white male. I guess one of the mysteries is why
Less would have unleashed a corporate civil war knowing that
his predatory behavior was at great and imminent risk of
being publicly revealed. Those are your words? Are you any
closer having written this book to understanding less His mindset? Well,
(35:46):
he was in a terrible position, as you can read
in his text messages and his anguished communications with other
board members. The decision to go to war with the
Redstones was not one he made lightly, and by the
end of it, I mean, he was damned if he did,
and damned if he didn't. You know, launching this nuclear
option potentially exposed him, but withdrawing and not doing anything
(36:07):
was also a terrible option, because, as I mentioned earlier,
he didn't want this woman meddling in his business, in
a business that he gave himself more credit than anyone
for making a success. I think when you read the
narrative you will understand why he did that, even though
on the face of it it seems crazy. And that's
because he had already denied to the board that they
had anything to worry about on this meto front. Then
(36:31):
the reason, of course he didn't want to go forward
was that so he couldn't admit to the board the
real reason why he didn't want to do it. At
the same time, if he pulled the plug on it,
the board member saying, look, you're gonna lose our back,
You're going to lose face. He didn't want to lose
face with the board. He says at one point, there's
there's no way out here. There's no good answer. It's
terrible either either way. And you've seen the text. He's drinking,
(36:54):
he's kind of incoherent, he's going through this anguish. He's
soffering there was no way out, and of course he
decided to go forward. And I guess just roll the
eyes and hope desperately that you could somehow keep all
this quiet. He was between the proverbial rock in a
hard place, which seems completely apropos in this case because
(37:17):
he apparently had a CBS employee on call for oral sex.
What come on and did that ever come out? Or
is this new in your book? We reported in the Times.
But there's certainly more color if you will, around all
of that in the book, And um, you know you'd
(37:39):
like to think that this kind of thing post me too,
doesn't happen again. But why, I mean, these companies are
run by in many cases people who grew up in
the same generation as less moonvest and and his cronies
on the board. And you know, companies have gotten much
better at managing their pr crises over the last few years.
I think they've gotten a lot less better and actually
(38:01):
changing internal cultures and until some until a scandal breaks, frankly,
and the reason we could report that, which, frankly is
one of the revelations that utterly floored me, that you
would have someone on call for oral sex on the payroll.
But that and some other revelations in the book emerged
from amazingly less Moon does himself. Late in the story,
(38:25):
he was interrogated by lawyers for CBS and they said, look,
tell us what else was going on? Did anything else
happened here? And he kept stressing, oh, it's all consensual,
But less Moon viz confessed to the existence of this
woman on the payroll, as well as an affair he had,
you know, ongoing with a married woman. And we do
(38:46):
not reveal the names of these people. They've never come
forward they've never complained. Again, he was saying, no, they
didn't complain about this, you know. There there, they were fine,
you know, And so he didn't really think that there
was anything wrong with this, even though he was used saying,
you know, CDs shareholder assets and money to create the situation.
(39:06):
As the lawyers themselves concluded, he was he was utterly
toned off to how this would look, whether the women
agreed or not. You can't do this in a public company.
And then of course there's the infamous U c L
A doctor story right when he went for a physical.
I mean, that's beyond belief to me still, I can't
believe the arrogance and stupidity of masturbating in front of
(39:31):
a doctor. What that was the accusation that really put
some people who were close to Moonvest and had previously
been willing to dismiss allegations over the edge. I mean,
the idea that he would do this to a doctor
in a professional setting, that was the thing that really
tipped the scales for some people. That's interesting because I
still think there's that sort of sexist, antiquated attitude about women,
(39:58):
you know, wanting to be a part of this, right,
But this was such a clear affront to really a
relative stranger. It's upsetting to me that it took an
outsider to seal his fate, and that some of these
other women were not believed or excuses were made for
his behavior. Right. Yeah, It's almost like in order to
(40:21):
be taken seriously as a woman, she had to be
a doctor. It wasn't enough for her to be an
executive or a masseuse or you know whatever. She had
to be, Oh my god, a doctor. Like we should
really take this one seriously. I agree with you. I mean,
there's so much rampant sexism in this book, not the
least of which, by the way, is the fact that
Sherry Redstone was accused of leaking a bunch of these
stories about his behavior. And as we detail in the book,
(40:42):
there is no evidence for that. And I personally do
not think that a man would have been accused of being,
as other people put it, conniving, manipulative, scheming, you know,
the suspicion cast on her. The words used to describe
what people thought she did were I mean, we'll never know,
but I mean, come, those words are tinged with sexism.
You make a good point, Katie, that the New Yorker
(41:04):
magazine published two big articles revealing twelve women who came
forward accusing Moonves of sexual misconduct, and that those were
not really the reasons that he ultimately got pushed out
the board. I think to this day, if that had
been it, he might have survived. It was the doctor incident,
which was not in the New Yorker, And it was
the fact, as we disclosed, you know in the book
(41:27):
in great detail, that there was an actress he was
trying to keep quiet and her manager was squeezing moon
Vest to try to get a role for her, and
he was making a lot of progress with this. And
when the board lawyers and the board found out about this,
that too was a nail in his coffin, because here
he was succumbing to this pressure, talking to CBS casting director,
(41:49):
encouraging them to hire this this woman, to keep her quiet,
and without disclosing any of that. And so that too
was what finally did him. Man, what is Less Moonves
doing today? And do you think he'll ever make it
come back? Stranger things have happened, And I know some
of his colleagues in Hollywood think with his enormous wealth,
(42:10):
his popular and attractive wife and his powerful friends. That's somehow,
in some way he'll re emerge. Do you think, Jim,
that's actually possible. I would never count him out. I mean, he,
as you point out, he has many friends in Hollywood.
I have personal friends in Hollywood who I talked to
have said, you know, look, I don't I don't really
know what happened there. But he was extremely good to
(42:33):
me early in my career. I wouldn't be where I
am today if it's not for him, and I you know,
I'm never going to forget that. Um. There are a
lot of people who would, you know, warmly welcome him
back if they had some protective cover. And with the
passage of time, who knows. I think when you read
this book, um, that might set this campaign back a
little bit. But but you're right, you know, he was
(42:54):
very well live. Unlike Harvey Weinstein, he's never been charged
with the crime, he's never been civilly sued. Much of
this did happen a long time ago, and Julie Chan,
his wife, has staunchly defended him and that has carried
I think a lot of weight in the power circles
of Hollywood. Do you think he's plotting his comeback, Rachel,
I think Hollywood loves the redemption story, and I think
(43:15):
that no business is as image conscious as Hollywood. And
I would bet that a lot of the reason why
we're not hearing more from him about what he's doing
is because people don't want to be associated with him,
not because they condemn his behavior. And I think that
as soon as enough time has passed where people will think, well,
you know, I can be in business with this guy
without getting a stench on me, then it's going to
(43:36):
be more likely that we could see some activity from him.
So just because he's lying low and not doing a
lot now, I don't think that that is necessarily a
predictor of future behavior interests. Having said that, he's no
spring Chicken, I mean, how old is Less now? Jim Well,
one of the interesting aspects of all this to me,
and as Sherry read Stun said to him at one point,
(43:56):
you know, you know, Less, they're going to be seventy.
You know, you've had an incredible reputation, you know, why
not step down, you know, or why not consider you know,
passing the torch? And yet no, he wouldn't do that,
And uh, you know, I think there are these people
in Hollywood. This is their whole live, this is their
(44:17):
entire identity wrapped up in there, and they're just not
willing to stop. So you know, I mean, look, here's
some to Redstone in his nineties saying, I'm not going away.
I'm still the chairman of these companies and I'm gonna
live forever. So you know, by comparison, Sumner Less as
a young guy. Well, so many of these people stay
too long at the fair, and I think lived to
(44:40):
rue the day that they wouldn't let go because ultimately
they're forced out or they have an embarrassing downfall and
they just refused to quit while they're ahead because the
power is just simply too intoxicating. Let's talk about Sherry
Redstone as we wrap up our conversation, and she got
(45:00):
the last laugh, didn't she. I mean, there's no way
to deny that she emerged victorious. I mean, how could
you not respect that, especially given the fact that what
she was up against. She had an unsupportive father for
much of her career, she had a board that didn't
respect her, she was warring with her chief executive. So
I think anybody would look at this and think that
this woman survived and succeeded against all odds. Yeah, and
(45:24):
you know you have to give her credit. She I
think right about putting those companies together. They did need
greater scale. They should have done it years earlier, but
better late than never, and they've produced some big hits.
You know, toppedn Maverick was a huge blockbuster Yellowstone. But
I wouldn't really even today say that Sherry Restone had
the last laugh. I mean, she has gained tremendous respect
(45:47):
in the industry. On the other hand, I think the
last scene in the book is very poignant. You know,
her father has died. She you know, asked his very
close confidante, do you think he really loved me? And
I think that's so poignant that even after he's died
and she has succeeded, she can't be sure of that.
(46:07):
I mean, and deep down is now what every child wants.
I'm going back to what Rachel said to me. This
is such a universal story about the relationship to when
a father and a daughter and a daughter, or any
child's need for the love and approval of their parents.
But I do have to ask you, do you think
the disfunction that was depicted in this book is a
(46:27):
thing of the past, or are we still likely to
witness this kind of behavior, scandal and drama in the
future wherever there's power and money. I guess their scandal
and debauchery and treachery, right, yes, I mean, just because
you know Harvey Weinstein and subsequent stories have broken does
(46:50):
not mean that people change overnight. And the cynical side
of me thinks that, you know, people with power and
money are always going to be behaving badly and it's
just a matter of whether they get caught. So you know,
I guess, I guess that's my cynical answer for you.
And that's good because that gives you, guys plenty to
write about, right, Yes, yes, exactly are writing about it.
I mean, just to name the media and entertainment industry,
(47:13):
the dramas that are going on at Fox and News Corps,
at Disney, at Warner Brothers Discovery. I rest my case
in closing. What would you say is Sumner Redstones legacy? Ultimately,
his legacy should be a cautionary tale about how, at
(47:34):
the end of the day, business and successful business is
human and this is very much a human story about
how family dysfunction affected a multibillion dollar empire and that
you basically have to get your house in order. Jim.
It certainly shows how far sheer determination and will can
take you, but it also shows that once you succeed,
(47:57):
that success and the money that comes with it can
be find you. So what's really important in life? Jim
and Rachel, thank you both so much for talking to
me about the book. I know it's going to be
a huge success because people eat this stuff up, and
I'm looking forward to the scripted series that I'm sure
(48:17):
we'll follow this best selling book. It's great to see
both of you. It's always a pleasure to talk to you,
so thank you, thank you. Thanks. That was James B.
Stewart and Rachel Abrams and their new book is called Unscripted.
Thanks so much for listening everyone. And by the way,
we're hard at work on the next season of our show.
(48:38):
We're making some big changes and we're super excited to
bring them to you soon. We've got some incredible guests
lined up. Always something important to share that will hopefully
help you navigate this crazy world we're living in. Kind
of a survivor's guide to everything from work to family
to relationships. Help your media diet. Hopefully it's Katie to
(49:00):
the rescue. We'll see, plus we'll hear from listeners like
you about how you're moving forward. We can't wait. Next
Question with Katie Curic is a production of I Heart
Media and Katie Curric Media. The executive producers or me,
Katie Curric and Courtney Litz, are wonderful new supervising producers
Marcy Thompson. Our producers are Atriona Fossio and Katherine Law.
(49:24):
Our audio engineers Matt Russell. For more information about today's episode,
or to sign up for my newsletter wake Up Call,
go to the description and the podcast app, or visit
us at Katie currect dot com. You can also find
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more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart
(49:45):
Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows,
Hi everyone, I'm Katie Curic and this this next question.
You know, when it comes to journalism, it can't get
much better than my next two guests. They are two
Pulitzer Prize winners who have broken story after story after story.
James B. Stewart has already written fourteen best selling books,
(00:22):
and now he's teamed up with a fellow New York
Times reporter for her first Their collaboration is called Unscripted.
It's out this week, and holy moley, it is very juicy.
It reads like a crazy slash sexy HBO drama you
can't stop binging. With a full account of the story
(00:42):
behind the multibillion dollar entertainment company, Paramount Global and the
hard to believe drama of the family behind it, the
red Stones. This story goes way beyond succession. Well, I've
been joking that this is King Lear meets Weekend at Bernie's.
You'll year about the anonymous tip that set this book
(01:02):
in motion, Well, Rachel's confidential source. It's probably the single
most productive source I've ever encountered in my decades of reporting.
How Sumner Redstone became such a ruthless businessman he had
to win every single thing that he did. I think,
like a lot of these people, he was insecure. You know,
his early life, his mother was a dominating figure. How
(01:24):
that competitive drive destroyed his relationship with his own daughter, Sherry.
This is a guy who withheld his love from his
own child, and his child, Cherry Redstone, yearned for it
until the day he died. And how Redstone's insatiable sexual
appetite man this guy was a serious horn dog, prompted
(01:45):
his own grandson to enlist the help of a millionaire matchmaker.
Sumner was dating, you know, everyone acrossed his path, including
his grandson's girlfriends, and so his grandson actually set him up.
Of all people, with Patti's or the millionaire matchmaker of
reality TV fame will also learn more about the downfall
(02:06):
of my old boss, Let's move vest and what finally
did him in. I'm sure you can't wait to listen,
But before we get to that conversation, I'm excited to
quickly tell you about Wake Up Call. It's our daily
newsletter delivered to your inbox Monday through Saturday, bright and early.
In it, we break down the top news stories of
(02:28):
the day, We answer your pressing questions, and we scour
the Internet for the best entertainment tip bits, streaming recommendations, recipes,
and health and wellness tips. It's a one stop shop
for smart, busy people like you. This week on wake
Up Call, we're uncovering the science behind why people cheat.
We'll bring you interviews with Felicia Rosario and Daniel Levin.
(02:51):
They're featured in hulu Stolen Youth docuseries about the cult
it Sarah Lawrence that devastated so many lives, and you'll
read a out of conversation I had with my nutritionists
about things you should be eating and not drinking to
reduce your risk of cancer. To subscribe to wake Up Call,
go to the link in the description below this episode.
(03:12):
It's right there in your podcast app or visit us
at Katie currect dot com. Now, Jim and Rachel with
all the dirt on Sumner Redstone, Where do we begin?
You too? I mean, this is very dishy, but I
had to wonder, do you think the average person really
(03:33):
gives a flying you know what about CBS, Viacom and
Sumner Redstone. Jim, I'll start with you. Well, I don't
think that matters because the story is about much more
than particular companies or even these particular characters to Austin
you Now, I think we both saw this as it's
a family drama. It's a story about a father and
(03:55):
a daughter. It's about a woman being thrust into the
male arc tank of Hollywood and surmounting one obstacle after another.
And you know other people have compared to Succession. I
think it goes way beyond Succession. It's entertaining, but I
think it is like the novels are I hope it's
very revealing about our times. It's almost Shakespearean in many
(04:17):
ways with I don't even know all the Shakespearean plays
that could be bundled up and thrown into this one.
And I thought about it's like it's like Succession, Billions
and Dynasty all rolled into one. Rachel, have I've forgotten
any drama? Well, I've been joking that this is King
Lear meets Weekend at Bernie's. How did you all get together?
(04:42):
And two fantastic reporters, I might add, and I understand
that an anonymous tip really brought you two together. Tell
me how this collaboration began and really kind of brought
your respective investigative reporting skills into one project. Rachel, How
(05:04):
did this happen? I mean, it's remarkable. Jim and I
I don't think we'd ever have a conversation before we
started working together. And I had been doing a lot
of me too reporting for The Times. Jim obviously is
an esteemed business journalist and columnist, and our paths had
just not intersected. And an anonymous tip came through the
(05:24):
New York Times tipline and it was forwarded to me
because it had to do with CBS, and I had
been working on some investigations about CBS and CBS is
investigation to its culture, and the person who emailed us,
it was very clear immediately was in a position to
just have a treasure trove of information, text messages, emails,
(05:45):
things that ultimately really led to us doing this book together.
But what happened was, you know, this email comes in
and an editor at the time says, you know, I
think Jim Stewart is working on something very similar. He's
also got a tip about something going on at at CBS,
and you really should talk to him. And so Jim
is a very respected, towering figure in our industry, and
(06:06):
I was almost a little bit nervous to talk to him,
but we both had the good fortune that he sat
on the outside aisle. So as I was walking home
one day and I already had my coat on, I
just said, well to stop by his desk and ask.
And I stopped and I said, you know here, you're
working on the CBS store and explained a little bit.
And that's how this came together. We ended up writing
stories for The Times, and it was very clear that
there was way more to the story that deserved a book, basically,
(06:29):
and you had a lot of the goods and Jim,
I'm sure you were like, I need to bring this
woman in and work on this together. Well, Rachel's confidential source,
I think his Rachel's source, because they really developed a relationship.
It's probably the single most productive source I've ever encountered
in my decades of reporting. I mean, she handed over
(06:52):
an immense amount of testimony, of documents of text and emails.
As Rachel said, and we had other confidential sources too,
but it really enabled us to let the reader be
a fly on the wall and these amazing scenes no
that I, as a journalist have never been able to
do before. I'm in the CBS boardroom, the comments and oh,
(07:12):
my god, the comments like blew my mind. Or in
the Sumner Redstone mansion, which, by the way, where everything
was recorded in videotaped, you're a fly on the wall
when Sumner Redstone like kicks out his living girlfriends. I mean,
it's astonishingly direct material that we were able to weave
into the story. Of course, I'm dying to know who
(07:34):
the source was, and I know if you told me,
you'd have to kill me. But boy, lucky you to
have access to all of this. Well, let's take a
step back, though, and I want you all to talk
about Sumner Redstone, who I had the pleasure of interviewing
once when I was at the Today Show. Who is
this guy who wants to take that Sumner maybe the
(07:57):
last of the old time moguls, and some way you
might want to hope he was the last of the
old time moguls because he assembled a multibillion dollar empire,
and you know, you have to admire this. He started
with a few drive in movie theaters outside of Boston,
where he was born, and he snapped up other companies.
He bought vot Coom, which owned a lot of cable channels, MTV,
(08:20):
Cartoon Network, Uh, you know, very successful cable channels. He
then went on to buy CBS, the broadcast network. He
added Paramount Movie Studio, so he had a fully integrated
media empire long before a lot of other people did.
But interestingly, he really descended on Hollywood as a multibillionaire
mogul when he was aged seventies six. Really he was
(08:42):
just getting started. I don't remember how ally when you
interviewed him, but you know, he was getting up there.
And you know, a lot of this story takes place
when he's in his nineties and still, you know, one
of the most powerful and richest media moguls on the planet.
More juicy tidbits about Sumner Stone and the whole gang
at Viacom right after this, Rachel, How did people treat
(09:17):
Sumner Redstone initially? Because he really was a fish out
of water, this guy from Boston, and boy, there are
a lot of stories about him, which we'll get into
in a moment. But was he considered an outsider and
how did people take to him initially? Well, he certainly
appeared like an outsider. I mean, as we detail in
(09:37):
the book, his appearance alone, you know, just a little
bit sloppy, the hair, you know that he looked like
it came from a bottle. Frumpy, right, kind of frump, yes,
kind of frumpy. This was not a man who looked
like a polished movie executive. He didn't carry himself the
way that less Moon invested. For example, he didn't have
less as Veneers. For example, he did not have less
(09:58):
as Veneers. But he had the same kind of ambition. Uh.
Sumner Redstone was ruthless, and you know, I have to
say this is really an example of he forced people
to take him seriously because he had the money. He
had the money and the drive and the power. So
you know, he was able to push a lot of
stuff through just on on sheer dint of will alone.
We have the guest listed his various birthday parties, and
(10:20):
you know every a list person is there. You know,
you've got enough money in power in Hollywood. You know,
at one point he threw Tom Cruise off the Paramount
lot and then he brought him back, and then Tom
Cruise is there at his birthday party. I mean that
Sumner could get anybody he wanted at any time. Tell
me a little bit about his personality. You talk about
him being ruthless, but how did he operate out in
(10:44):
the world gym. Well, he was intensely competitive and he
had to win, including you know, a tennis game with
his own daughter. He was curious when she she beat him.
He had to win every single thing that he did.
I mean, all of other people pondered the psychology of
that at the same time. I think, like a lot
of these people, he was insecure. You know, his early life,
(11:06):
his mother was a dominating figure. She wouldn't let him date.
He's studied all the time, and he's sort of you know, again,
he hit Hollywood at age seventy six, and he's sort
of sort of relived what for most people would be
an adolescence. He's like dating every good looking woman who
crossed his path. And by the way, he could get
people to come to his party, well, he could get
(11:27):
pretty much anybody wanted to go on a date with him,
given his money and power. Ye, we'll talk about that
that in a moment, Rachel. But for people who are
not necessarily well versed on Viacom and all the ins
and outs of that company, how did he go from
owning a few movie theaters to being this big maca
(11:50):
out in Hollywood? Rachel? Uh, he basically went on a
like I said, a ruthless acquisitions. I mean one of
his big wins was MTV. And and I remember this
because MTV was this kind of rebellious um little company
that ran music videos and put musicians on the air
that no one had ever heard of. People would executives
(12:11):
would go to the office in tennis shoes and jeans.
You know, this was not a corporate environment. And and
this was something you know, as Jim said, sum, there
was a guy who had to win at any cost
and he had to have MTV over the objections of
some of the executives there. And that is I would say,
like one of the biggest most recognizable brands that's in
the Viacom empire. I mean take me from the beginning, though.
(12:33):
You know, this guy's in Boston, he owns these movie theaters.
How did he get from Boston to Hollywood. Well, it's
it's pretty simple, a tourd to John Bonds. Uh. He
borrowed money, he used leverage. He claims to have invented
in Multiplux. He took the drave Ins and he turned
them into many movies, showing at once kind of anachronism. Now,
(12:54):
maybe but at the time that was an innovation. But
once he had the theaters under his belt and went
on his his buying spree, it was borrowed money, and
it was a time when most people were afraid to
do that. But he hooked up with Michael Milken. Michael
Milken befriended many sort of outsiders who had the brazenness
to borrow the money and take the plunge. One of
Sunder's proudest moments was when he outbid and beat Barry
(13:18):
Diller to get the Paramount studio. And for somebody who
started with drive in theaters to get Paramount, which when
was one of the premier studios that the mount everest
of Hollywood. From his perspective, was an unbelievable achievement, which,
by the way, figures in the story because the last
thing he wanted to do was ever give up Paramount.
There's a reason now the whole company is called Paramount. Ultimately,
(13:40):
where did he land and what did he have in
his purview? Sure he landed at the top of the mountain.
At one point, Viacom was one of the most important
media companies of its time. It had, as I mentioned, MTV,
but it also had Nickelodeon, which has really fallen from grace,
But Nickelodeon was was printing money at one point at
its height. Um, he also had CBS, of course, and
(14:03):
you know, this was a guy who looked at Rupert
Murdoch and was jealous, you know, he wanted to be
that big And Jim, I'm sure you have something to
add about to sort of buy a comet at its peak, Well,
I had these very valuable cable channels, and until pretty recently,
cable channels was just a printing press for money. Now,
because the cable bondle, consumers bought a whole bundle, whether
they watched it or or not, they were paying, you know,
(14:24):
for MTV, they're paying for Comedy Center, they're paying for Nickelodeon.
There has never ever been a media model that was
more profitable than what turned into the cable monk. But
when Sumner Redstone divided his assets into the CBS business
on one hand and the Vacom business on the other,
vot Coom was the high growth company. And also, you know,
we obviously can't get inside less Moon VISs mind entirely,
(14:47):
although our text messages from him, you know, come really close.
But when Sumner Redstone split those two companies, CBS and Viacom,
Moonbus was furious that he got the sort of the
also rants, which was CBS. It was last in the
race eetings. It was not doing well, and you have
to imagine that because under him it went to the
most consistently watched broadcast network, which factors into our story
(15:10):
because you'd have to imagine that if he took it
from last ran to that. Then when Sherry Redstone comes
in and starts saying, oh, I want to merge the companies.
I want to do this, I want to do that,
you know he's probably thinking what, but I you know,
I fixed this place. Let's talk about the relationship with
Sumner Redstone and his daughter, because, as you mentioned earlier,
this is really a human drama and a real succession story.
(15:34):
This is a guy who withheld his love from his
own child, and his child, Cherry Redstone, yearned for it
until the day he died. And I think a lot
of people can relate to the idea of having sort
of an imperial parent who is withholding at times and
who gives out love sparingly and affection sparingly. And it
can also be incredibly harsh. I mean, the kind of
(15:56):
the kind of yearning for approval and affection that push
and pull and take away creates really wasn't play here.
And I think it's a played a lot of families.
And one of the reasons why she was sort of
reluctant to be part of her father's empire was because
she has maintained she wanted to be with her own children.
And you know, you'd have to wonder was that, in
(16:16):
some way an attempt to think, well, you know, I
don't want to repeat the same dynamics that that I
had to suffer through with my dad. I'd have to say,
I'd call this an abusive relationship myself. I mean, some nerve,
for example, would write emails and he would send them
to share with horrible language and I'm not going to
(16:37):
say in this interview horrible, and then he would copy
them to all VACOM and CBOUS executives and board members,
and so they read the same things that he was
sending to Sherry, which of course made her cry. He
didn't show up and she got, you know, the Woman
of the Year award in New York. He he sent
an open letter criticizing her that was printed in Forbes.
(16:58):
She read that and she cried it. You know, there's
a lot written about fathers and sons and mothers and sons.
I don't think the complicated relationships that fathers and daughters
have been explored nearly as much. And here you see
an aging patriarch who, on the one hand, is horribly
sexist and critical of his children by the way he
(17:19):
drove his son away completely and took up these surrogate sons,
and then at the same time he wants someone in
the family to carry on the family name. It's they
see that tension going back and forth throughout the story.
Why do you think he was so ugly to Shay Rachel?
I mean, where did that come from? This abusive, hateful,
(17:43):
cruel behavior towards his own daughter. Well, I think a
lot of it is what Jim said earlier, that this
is a guy who had to win at every cost,
and he was incapable of being happy for his own
kid if it cost him something. I think that's sort
of the key here. And this is also a man
who was known for firing executives if the stock dropped
(18:03):
like I don't know, half a cent or something. This
this guy, I think sort of the ruthlessness in business.
He also really played out with his his dynamic with
his daughter. Why you know, who's to say, but it's
certainly it's certainly not a typical father daughter relationship or
father or parent daughter. Yeah. You know, I think readers
can you know, from their own experience and kind of
(18:25):
see what's going on there. But somebody was the kind
of person, no matter who it was, if somebody else
succeeded in a way that somehow might diminish his accomplishments
or stature, he hated and resented that. So when Sherry
got praised from the outside, some of his immediate response was, well,
wait a minute, I'm the one who built this company.
I gave them everything that they've got, and you know
(18:47):
there's a whiff in there that having made them incredibly wealthy,
he had to build it all himself. He had these
harsh parents, had the demanding mother, and they you know,
they had it kind of handed to them on the
silver platter created by by him, and so to the
extent they started succeeded on their own. He lashed out,
(19:08):
We're going to talk about sort of what happened with
the business and with Sherry in a moment. But we
have to talk about Sumner's insatiable sexual appetite because this
is something Honestly, it's like what, um, I know that
your book makes clear that Sumner's libido would not slow
(19:29):
down as he got older. Let's talk about his attitude
toward women in general, and then we'll get into the
nitty gritty of some of those conquests. I mean, his
attitude in a word, was awful. And you know, for
anybody wondering how how companies like CBS or Weinstein Company
or really any companies could have had systemic problems, inherent
(19:53):
cultural problems with women, with covering up misconduct, I mean,
look no further than the way some of these guys
acted in their personal lives. Like to think that that
is divorced from their attitudes toward women in the workplace
is I think really a big misconception. And he treated
women like they were interchangeable, like they were for sale.
(20:13):
I mean, within our book, you can we detail a
lot of the women coming in and out of the mansion,
women getting paid. At one point, he tries to go
after his grandson's girlfriend in the book, so which is
a crazy story and of itself that we write about. So,
you know, to to to a guy like Summer, nothing
was off limits. And it's that sense of entitlement that
I think it's a lot of these guys into trouble.
(20:35):
Why didn't he ever get me to Jim Well? I
think his misconduct was usually accompanied by a lot of money.
I mean, I mean millions of dollars a million here,
ten million there, seven million to this woman. And you know,
I don't know, I mean there was certainly ample material there.
(20:58):
And you know, Rachel, I've talked a lot about about this.
It's interesting that as this mogul and again and elderly,
when when he got to Hollywood, a lot of this
seems to have been so important to him more to
impress his cronies. You know, he was he was his
best friend. I put that in clothes because who knows
these people have ever actually had any real friends. But
Robert Evans, who was, you know, the legendary producer who
(21:22):
was a notorious womanizer, always bragging about his conquest, and
this other group of sort of aging moguls. It was
almost like he just wanted to be able to like
appear with this beautiful blonde on his armor, a gorgeous woman.
And and again I think the reason nobody was blowing
the whistle even now, I mean, Rachel can testify to
(21:42):
this because she did a lot of this work. You know,
these women did not want to talk. It wasn't like, oh,
we're eager to tell what happened with some of the
red stuff. Oh No. There was a notorious story about
him even before I interviewed him, when there was the
fire at the Copley Plot, and of course this led
to his disfigured hand. What was the scene there? Um,
(22:08):
he was there with a mistress, girlfriend mistress. He was
there at the Copley Plaza hotel with with somebody who
was not his wife. They both escaped out the window.
But a remarkable thing about it is it was decades
before that fact that he was actually in there and
escaped with a mistress was ever published. And the legend
of this is that he clung for dear life with
(22:29):
his hand and was able to continue clinging even as
the fire burned and disfigured his hands for the rest
of his life. And he would tell the story as
an example of how he could survive anything and how
strong his ambition was and his will to live. I mean,
this is also a guy who would say, only half
jokingly that he never expected to die, so why did
(22:49):
he need a succession plan. He confided in one of
his girlfriends that the reason he said that was not
so much that he actually thought he was going to
live forever, but that he feared a final reckoning with
his maker and that he was going to be judged
very harshly. It does show a certain self awareness that
(23:11):
his behavior was in many cases beyond the pale, and
I think what he might have been most afraid of
was being judged for how he treated his own children.
Two women figure quite largely in this book, and those
were women who were in Sumner's later life. Sherry Redstone
not so fondly named them S and M. Sydney Holland
(23:33):
and Manuela Herzer. Who were they and how did they
come to know Sumner? Well, Sumner was dating, you know,
everyone acrossed his path, including his grandson's girlfriends, and so
his grandson actually set him up, of all people, with
Patty Standing or the millionaire matchmaker of reality TV fame,
(23:53):
and she eventually that's going to be a great scene
in the series you guys, it's an so yeah, she should.
So she is the one who introduced him to Sydney
halland they were friends. And Sydney Holland had I guess
you could call it somewhat checkered past um. She had
been dating older wealthy men and Um, according to her,
(24:17):
they had a whirlwind courtship and in short order she
had a non carrot diamond ring on her finger and
moved into the mansion with Sumner. Sometime after that, one
of Sumner's previous girlfriends, who Robert Evans introduced him. There
should have been a warning flag right there. She was
having her house remodeled, paid for by Sumner, and she
(24:39):
decided to move into the mansion while the remodeling was
going on. As far as I know, the remodeling is
still going on because she stayed. So these two women
were now living in the mansion. Sydney was supposedly his
fiancee and girlfriend, and Manuela, his ex girlfriend, was now
just a close confidante and companion. But they were living
in there, and slow but surely they started getting their
(25:01):
hands on the estate plan, the trust plan, the bank accounts,
the shareholders, and again to me, when the startling revelations
in the book. On one day alone, they got him
to sell all the CBS stock, which he said he
never would do, and he made a wire transfer of
ninety million dollars to the two of them that afternoon.
And in fact, when he died, didn't they share a
(25:25):
hundred and fifty million dollars of his wealth. By the
time Always said and done, they had managed to separate
over a hundred fifty million dollars from him. And that,
by the way, maybe an understate. You know, we can't
say to the penny how much there meant. It may
have been many millions more than that. There was also
Maliah and lynd She was a flight attendant on one
(25:45):
of his private jets. How would you describe their relationship
Stockholm syndrome. I mean, this was this was a woman
who was not making a ton of money. I mean,
it would pay well to work on the corporate jet.
But she she works on this thing and she counters Redstone,
who was known for just being horrific to the people
that worked for him, especially people on his planes, by
(26:05):
the way, and she flies with him one day and
he's just alternating between being abusive to her cursing at
her and hitting on her in full view by the
way of his guests who don't really do much of anything,
And she, of course is worried that about her job
and subsequently does not get invited back to any more
flights on the corporate jet, which was an important source
of income, and he keeps dangling job prospects for her.
(26:29):
You know, if you have come have dinner with me
and maybe we can talk about, you know, getting back
on the plane. You know, that's why I say Stockholm syndrome,
because she didn't really have a lot of good choices.
I mean, what else is you gonna do but the
billionaire saying maybe we'll give you work again. And Sydney
and Manuela plotted against her, right Jim, Yeah, you know,
(26:49):
Sydney and Manuela were not only tolerant but sort of
encouraged him to like have you know, I know how
to put this nicely, but shall we say encounters with
other women who then got money, because that kind of
took some of the pressure off them, I think, but
so they wouldn't have to sleep with them. Yes, I mean,
there were so many women who were brought into that
(27:10):
mansion and then you know, they were getting these sacks
full of you know, cash, and they you know, hand
out a thousand dollars here, ten tho dollars. Anyway, that's
all document you can. You can see that in the book.
But well that was going on. The Maliah thing got
out of hand. I mean, sum are seen by all
apparent purposes to be completely in love with her, even
though we revealed that he did assault her. She would
(27:32):
show up on these red carpet things on Sumner's arm,
and that's exactly what he wanted, the image he wanted
to her job. But they got jealous about this, so
they hired a private detective and they followed her. She
at some point she was concerned about her safety, even
whether her life was threatened, and they convinced Sumner that
(27:53):
she was cheating on him and had another boyfriend. Was
she did, and he got all upset about that, and
they managed to break them up. I have to add
another show to this, and this is Sister Wives. I mean,
what the heck is going on? And if some are
is such a shrewd businessman, how was he manipulated and
(28:18):
bamboozled by these two women so easily? On a somber note,
one thing that was really upsetting to report on and
just listen to and think about is all the elder
abuse that is detailed in this book. And one of
the shocking, if not surprising, things that I think a
lot of people can relate to, is that the combination
of getting older, uh, wanting companionship, vulnerability, declining health, all
(28:43):
of these things make a person more vulnerable to outside influences.
I was really shocked that sum To Redstone, for all
of his wealth and power and resources, did not have
more guardrails up around him to prevent people like this
from getting in and just going back to the millionaire
matchmaker for a second, for your most of your audience
maybe has not does not understand who this person is.
(29:05):
This is a woman who had a Bravo reality show
where women would be corralled into a bar and so
just for the opportunity to meet one so called millionaire.
So this was not like a classy matchmaking service. This
was not the kind of matchmaking service that you think
the rich and powerful billionaires availed themselves of, you know,
the kind of people that don't have even have a website.
(29:26):
So the idea that some no Redstone would turn to
her that his family would encourage him to use a
service like this. I mean, it just feels like there
were no protections. Well, clearly in these situations, Jim, mostly
it's your children who are going to protect you, right,
And he's so alienated. I mean, who is the first
line of defense when someone's getting older. It's someone's kids
(29:48):
who are going to protect that person when they're faculty
start to falter. And he didn't have those relationships, right, Jim.
In fact, that you see, he made his healthcare proxy
first his of surrogate's son, the chief executive of Vogkom,
one of his companies, and then after that he made
Manuela hurts Or the companion the healthcare proxy rather than
(30:10):
his own daughter. And you know, I think Rachel makes
a good point. You know, as he got older, he declined,
and we we gained access to previously confidential evaluations of
his mental state. And this is true. I think of
so many people as they you know, age, it's not
a clear cut case of mental competence or not. It's
a gray area in between. It is sad to read
(30:33):
this report when you know what he was like at
his peak, but clearly he was in decline. He was
emotionally vulnerable, and these two women, whether it was instinct
or whether they you know, knew how to do this,
preyed on his vulnerabilities. They isolated him from the rest
of the world. They isolated him from his family, They
banned calls into the house, they changed bone numbers, they
(30:54):
did everything to cut him off from anyone except them.
And you can see how successful it was. I think
one of the shocking things in the book is how
close Sydney and Manuela came to gaining control of the
entire empire. And are they going to face any repercussions
for this behavior? I mean, what happened to them? Well,
(31:16):
we should point out that they've never been charged with
a crime. You know, the authorities did investigate claims of
elder abuse, they did not find any wrongdoing. Are they
going to face any consequences? I mean, so far, they
seemed to swan around Los Angeles, you know, chairing up
boards and running charities, and they're described by all these
precigious institutions and their biographies as you know, accomplished philanthropists.
(31:37):
So so far it seems like they've made out really
pretty well with a lot of money and and and
some some measure of respect and acceptance. Yeah, I would
add that that so called investigation and elder abuse was
a joke. I mean, they sent Los Angeles Protective Services,
sent somebody out there, and all they did was interviewed
Sunder himself with its lawyer and caregiver is standing right there.
(31:59):
They didn't interview any of the nurses or any of
the people who filed the complaint number one. And secondly,
the Redstones did file suit an elder view suit against them,
seeking the return of some of these many millions they got.
But in the end, Sherry residentatoricularly she didn't want to
litigate this. She didn't care that much about the money.
She just wanted them out of her life. So they
ended up settling those cases, leaving their fortunes intact. I
(32:21):
can't believe people would have them on their boards. But
I guess money talks right. This book, more than anything,
really emphasizes that money cannot buy you happiness. I can
buy you a lot, But this is really a tale
of that. Anybody who's ever had to decide whether or
not to take a driver's license away from a parent,
or had to figure out whether to step in because
(32:42):
they were trying to figure out is my parents able
to to lead their own independent life. As Jim said,
this book, people will relate to this because it's not
all clear cut. We'll be back with more of Jim
and Rachel right after this. Let's move from the personal
(33:09):
to the professional. Obviously, in many ways, Sumner Redstone's professional
life was as juicy and drama filled as his personal life,
especially the fall of Less Moves, which I am particularly
interested in since he hired me to anchor the CBS
(33:30):
Evening News. It's astonishing to realize the extent to which
the CBS board protected him despite the damning evidence against him.
How do you explain that the CBS board was except
for those loyal to Sherry Redstone or picked by Sherry Redstone,
who were a minority, We're basically picked by less boons.
(33:51):
They were friends of his, they were cronies of his,
They were very strong supporters. They were in awe of Less.
I mean, unlike a Harvey Einstein, Les Moonves was running
a major public corporation and was doing it incredibly well.
He was named by the Hollywood reporters the most powerful
man in the media and entertainment world. Wall Street loved him.
(34:14):
So from strictly a shareholder perspective, you could see that
they were dazzled by him. But beyond that, they had
attitudes about women and so that, you know, frankly, are
pretty anachronistic by today's standards. And so first the allegations
came up, their immediate impulse was or there can't be
anything to that. Um, they said, well, we'll ask less.
So they asked less. He denies that. That the okay
(34:36):
end of that, we have nothing more to investigate. You know,
more allegations come up that you can't really refute and
there and now they're saying, oh, well, it all happened
a long time ago, or as one director, Arnold Cumblson
actually said, oh, we all did that. He he sent
an email that we saw that said if a hundred
more women came forward, we don't care less as our leader,
(34:59):
and we're ending by him. I remember reading that, I
think probably in your early reporting on this, right. Yeah,
it was just unbelievably blind loyalty and at the same
time suspicion of hostility of and absolutely no confidence in
Sharon Redstone. It's not coincidence that she is the daughter
and she's a woman and lessman that was very successful
(35:23):
white male. I guess one of the mysteries is why
Less would have unleashed a corporate civil war knowing that
his predatory behavior was at great and imminent risk of
being publicly revealed. Those are your words? Are you any
closer having written this book to understanding less His mindset? Well,
(35:46):
he was in a terrible position, as you can read
in his text messages and his anguished communications with other
board members. The decision to go to war with the
Redstones was not one he made lightly, and by the
end of it, I mean, he was damned if he did,
and damned if he didn't. You know, launching this nuclear
option potentially exposed him, but withdrawing and not doing anything
(36:07):
was also a terrible option, because, as I mentioned earlier,
he didn't want this woman meddling in his business, in
a business that he gave himself more credit than anyone
for making a success. I think when you read the
narrative you will understand why he did that, even though
on the face of it it seems crazy. And that's
because he had already denied to the board that they
had anything to worry about on this meto front. Then
(36:31):
the reason, of course he didn't want to go forward
was that so he couldn't admit to the board the
real reason why he didn't want to do it. At
the same time, if he pulled the plug on it,
the board member saying, look, you're gonna lose our back,
You're going to lose face. He didn't want to lose
face with the board. He says at one point, there's
there's no way out here. There's no good answer. It's
terrible either either way. And you've seen the text. He's drinking,
(36:54):
he's kind of incoherent, he's going through this anguish. He's
soffering there was no way out, and of course he
decided to go forward. And I guess just roll the
eyes and hope desperately that you could somehow keep all
this quiet. He was between the proverbial rock in a
hard place, which seems completely apropos in this case because
(37:17):
he apparently had a CBS employee on call for oral sex.
What come on and did that ever come out? Or
is this new in your book? We reported in the Times.
But there's certainly more color if you will, around all
of that in the book, And um, you know you'd
(37:39):
like to think that this kind of thing post me too,
doesn't happen again. But why, I mean, these companies are
run by in many cases people who grew up in
the same generation as less moonvest and and his cronies
on the board. And you know, companies have gotten much
better at managing their pr crises over the last few years.
I think they've gotten a lot less better and actually
(38:01):
changing internal cultures and until some until a scandal breaks, frankly,
and the reason we could report that, which, frankly is
one of the revelations that utterly floored me, that you
would have someone on call for oral sex on the payroll.
But that and some other revelations in the book emerged
from amazingly less Moon does himself. Late in the story,
(38:25):
he was interrogated by lawyers for CBS and they said, look,
tell us what else was going on? Did anything else
happened here? And he kept stressing, oh, it's all consensual,
But less Moon viz confessed to the existence of this
woman on the payroll, as well as an affair he had,
you know, ongoing with a married woman. And we do
(38:46):
not reveal the names of these people. They've never come
forward they've never complained. Again, he was saying, no, they
didn't complain about this, you know. There there, they were fine,
you know, And so he didn't really think that there
was anything wrong with this, even though he was used saying,
you know, CDs shareholder assets and money to create the situation.
(39:06):
As the lawyers themselves concluded, he was he was utterly
toned off to how this would look, whether the women
agreed or not. You can't do this in a public company.
And then of course there's the infamous U c L
A doctor story right when he went for a physical.
I mean, that's beyond belief to me still, I can't
believe the arrogance and stupidity of masturbating in front of
(39:31):
a doctor. What that was the accusation that really put
some people who were close to Moonvest and had previously
been willing to dismiss allegations over the edge. I mean,
the idea that he would do this to a doctor
in a professional setting, that was the thing that really
tipped the scales for some people. That's interesting because I
still think there's that sort of sexist, antiquated attitude about women,
(39:58):
you know, wanting to be a part of this, right,
But this was such a clear affront to really a
relative stranger. It's upsetting to me that it took an
outsider to seal his fate, and that some of these
other women were not believed or excuses were made for
his behavior. Right. Yeah, It's almost like in order to
(40:21):
be taken seriously as a woman, she had to be
a doctor. It wasn't enough for her to be an
executive or a masseuse or you know whatever. She had
to be, Oh my god, a doctor. Like we should
really take this one seriously. I agree with you. I mean,
there's so much rampant sexism in this book, not the
least of which, by the way, is the fact that
Sherry Redstone was accused of leaking a bunch of these
stories about his behavior. And as we detail in the book,
(40:42):
there is no evidence for that. And I personally do
not think that a man would have been accused of being,
as other people put it, conniving, manipulative, scheming, you know,
the suspicion cast on her. The words used to describe
what people thought she did were I mean, we'll never know,
but I mean, come, those words are tinged with sexism.
You make a good point, Katie, that the New Yorker
(41:04):
magazine published two big articles revealing twelve women who came
forward accusing Moonves of sexual misconduct, and that those were
not really the reasons that he ultimately got pushed out
the board. I think to this day, if that had
been it, he might have survived. It was the doctor incident,
which was not in the New Yorker, And it was
the fact, as we disclosed, you know in the book
(41:27):
in great detail, that there was an actress he was
trying to keep quiet and her manager was squeezing moon
Vest to try to get a role for her, and
he was making a lot of progress with this. And
when the board lawyers and the board found out about this,
that too was a nail in his coffin, because here
he was succumbing to this pressure, talking to CBS casting director,
(41:49):
encouraging them to hire this this woman, to keep her quiet,
and without disclosing any of that. And so that too
was what finally did him. Man, what is Less Moonves
doing today? And do you think he'll ever make it
come back? Stranger things have happened, And I know some
of his colleagues in Hollywood think with his enormous wealth,
(42:10):
his popular and attractive wife and his powerful friends. That's somehow,
in some way he'll re emerge. Do you think, Jim,
that's actually possible. I would never count him out. I mean, he,
as you point out, he has many friends in Hollywood.
I have personal friends in Hollywood who I talked to
have said, you know, look, I don't I don't really
know what happened there. But he was extremely good to
(42:33):
me early in my career. I wouldn't be where I
am today if it's not for him, and I you know,
I'm never going to forget that. Um. There are a
lot of people who would, you know, warmly welcome him
back if they had some protective cover. And with the
passage of time, who knows. I think when you read
this book, um, that might set this campaign back a
little bit. But but you're right, you know, he was
(42:54):
very well live. Unlike Harvey Weinstein, he's never been charged
with the crime, he's never been civilly sued. Much of
this did happen a long time ago, and Julie Chan,
his wife, has staunchly defended him and that has carried
I think a lot of weight in the power circles
of Hollywood. Do you think he's plotting his comeback, Rachel,
I think Hollywood loves the redemption story, and I think
(43:15):
that no business is as image conscious as Hollywood. And
I would bet that a lot of the reason why
we're not hearing more from him about what he's doing
is because people don't want to be associated with him,
not because they condemn his behavior. And I think that
as soon as enough time has passed where people will think, well,
you know, I can be in business with this guy
without getting a stench on me, then it's going to
(43:36):
be more likely that we could see some activity from him.
So just because he's lying low and not doing a
lot now, I don't think that that is necessarily a
predictor of future behavior interests. Having said that, he's no
spring Chicken, I mean, how old is Less now? Jim Well,
one of the interesting aspects of all this to me,
and as Sherry read Stun said to him at one point,
(43:56):
you know, you know, Less, they're going to be seventy.
You know, you've had an incredible reputation, you know, why
not step down, you know, or why not consider you know,
passing the torch? And yet no, he wouldn't do that,
And uh, you know, I think there are these people
in Hollywood. This is their whole live, this is their
(44:17):
entire identity wrapped up in there, and they're just not
willing to stop. So you know, I mean, look, here's
some to Redstone in his nineties saying, I'm not going away.
I'm still the chairman of these companies and I'm gonna
live forever. So you know, by comparison, Sumner Less as
a young guy. Well, so many of these people stay
too long at the fair, and I think lived to
(44:40):
rue the day that they wouldn't let go because ultimately
they're forced out or they have an embarrassing downfall and
they just refused to quit while they're ahead because the
power is just simply too intoxicating. Let's talk about Sherry
Redstone as we wrap up our conversation, and she got
(45:00):
the last laugh, didn't she. I mean, there's no way
to deny that she emerged victorious. I mean, how could
you not respect that, especially given the fact that what
she was up against. She had an unsupportive father for
much of her career, she had a board that didn't
respect her, she was warring with her chief executive. So
I think anybody would look at this and think that
this woman survived and succeeded against all odds. Yeah, and
(45:24):
you know you have to give her credit. She I
think right about putting those companies together. They did need
greater scale. They should have done it years earlier, but
better late than never, and they've produced some big hits.
You know, toppedn Maverick was a huge blockbuster Yellowstone. But
I wouldn't really even today say that Sherry Restone had
the last laugh. I mean, she has gained tremendous respect
(45:47):
in the industry. On the other hand, I think the
last scene in the book is very poignant. You know,
her father has died. She you know, asked his very
close confidante, do you think he really loved me? And
I think that's so poignant that even after he's died
and she has succeeded, she can't be sure of that.
(46:07):
I mean, and deep down is now what every child wants.
I'm going back to what Rachel said to me. This
is such a universal story about the relationship to when
a father and a daughter and a daughter, or any
child's need for the love and approval of their parents.
But I do have to ask you, do you think
the disfunction that was depicted in this book is a
(46:27):
thing of the past, or are we still likely to
witness this kind of behavior, scandal and drama in the
future wherever there's power and money. I guess their scandal
and debauchery and treachery, right, yes, I mean, just because
you know Harvey Weinstein and subsequent stories have broken does
(46:50):
not mean that people change overnight. And the cynical side
of me thinks that, you know, people with power and
money are always going to be behaving badly and it's
just a matter of whether they get caught. So you know,
I guess, I guess that's my cynical answer for you.
And that's good because that gives you, guys plenty to
write about, right, Yes, yes, exactly are writing about it.
I mean, just to name the media and entertainment industry,
(47:13):
the dramas that are going on at Fox and News Corps,
at Disney, at Warner Brothers Discovery. I rest my case
in closing. What would you say is Sumner Redstones legacy? Ultimately,
his legacy should be a cautionary tale about how, at
(47:34):
the end of the day, business and successful business is
human and this is very much a human story about
how family dysfunction affected a multibillion dollar empire and that
you basically have to get your house in order. Jim.
It certainly shows how far sheer determination and will can
take you, but it also shows that once you succeed,
(47:57):
that success and the money that comes with it can
be find you. So what's really important in life? Jim
and Rachel, thank you both so much for talking to
me about the book. I know it's going to be
a huge success because people eat this stuff up, and
I'm looking forward to the scripted series that I'm sure
(48:17):
we'll follow this best selling book. It's great to see
both of you. It's always a pleasure to talk to you,
so thank you, thank you. Thanks. That was James B.
Stewart and Rachel Abrams and their new book is called Unscripted.
Thanks so much for listening everyone. And by the way,
we're hard at work on the next season of our show.
(48:38):
We're making some big changes and we're super excited to
bring them to you soon. We've got some incredible guests
lined up. Always something important to share that will hopefully
help you navigate this crazy world we're living in. Kind
of a survivor's guide to everything from work to family
to relationships. Help your media diet. Hopefully it's Katie to
(49:00):
the rescue. We'll see, plus we'll hear from listeners like
you about how you're moving forward. We can't wait. Next
Question with Katie Curic is a production of I Heart
Media and Katie Curric Media. The executive producers or me,
Katie Curric and Courtney Litz, are wonderful new supervising producers
Marcy Thompson. Our producers are Atriona Fossio and Katherine Law.
(49:24):
Our audio engineers Matt Russell. For more information about today's episode,
or to sign up for my newsletter wake Up Call,
go to the description and the podcast app, or visit
us at Katie currect dot com. You can also find
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(49:45):
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