Paramount CEO Jeff Shell incorrectly disclosed specific details about the timing, cost and structure of the public company’s $7.7 billion media rights deal with the Ultimate Fighting Championship nearly a month before its August 2025 announcement — that’s the allegation of leaked confidential data that an outside law firm is now investigating. Hollywood Reporter I’ve learned. The SEC is also now reviewing a related whistleblower complaint.
The stock price of TKO Group Holdings, the parent company of the UFC, rose 10 percent on news of the Paramount deal.
The reporting party is RJ Cipriani, a high-risk gambler with a documented history as a federal whistleblower. He has been in settlement negotiations with Shell over a dispute relating to consulting services. He declined to comment.
The two men shared the same attorney: famed Hollywood attorney Patricia Glaser, who no longer represents Cipriani.
When asked for comment, Glaser said in a statement: “We were presented with a draft complaint riddled with obvious errors of fact and law and threatened to file it, but if he makes the mistake of going forward with it, we will respond forcefully.”
The Shell investigation comes at a sensitive time for Paramount, which on February 23 tempered its politically charged bid to buy larger rival Warner Bros. Pictures. Discovery – and in the process, took out Netflix. The streaming giant previously closed an $82.7 billion deal for WBD. Shell is said to have notified Paramount as soon as it became aware of the draft whistleblower complaint.
In 2023, Shell was terminated from his previous top job as CEO of NBC Universal due to allegations of inappropriate behavior involving a CNBC reporter. However, he found resurrection in Paramount owner David Ellison, who elevated Shell to his current position from an interim position with the private equity firm RedBird Capital Partners, which helped Ellison’s Skydance Media acquire the studio.
Cipriani is a colorful character whose exploits as a high-profile actor and government whistleblower have included run-ins with a Las Vegas casino giant as well as an international drug lord. He said THR In September 2025, a documentary series produced by Mark Wahlberg was released on Amazon Prime about the final saga, Cocaine quarterbackportrayed him in a false light. Cipriani said he was in development on a written project about the risky business that is his life. The working title is Win the jackpotIt is the code name given to him by the FBI.
