Paramount president Jeff Shell improperly 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 almost a month before its August 2025 announcement — that’s the allegation of leaked confidential data that an outside law firm is now investigating, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. The SEC is also now reviewing a related whistleblower complaint.
UFC parent TKO Group Holdings’ stock price surged 10 percent following news of the Paramount pact.
The reporting party is R.J. Cipriani, a high-stakes gambler with a documented history as a federal whistleblower. He’s been in settlement negotiations with Shell over a dispute involving consultation services. He declined to comment.
Both men have shared the same attorney: noted Hollywood power lawyer Patricia Glaser, who no longer reps Cipriani.
When asked for comment, Glaser said in a statement, “we were presented with a draft complaint riddled with clear errors of fact and law and the threat that it would be filed, but if he makes the mistake of going ahead with it, we will strongly respond.”
The Shell investigation surfaces at a sensitive time for Paramount, which on Feb. 23 sweetened its politically charged bid to purchase larger competitor Warner Bros. Discovery — and, in the process, elbow out Netflix. The streaming giant previously entered a $82.7 billion deal for WBD. Shell is said to have notified Paramount once he learned of the whistleblower’s draft complaint.
In 2023, Shell was terminated from his previous top job as NBC Universal’s CEO over allegations of inappropriate conduct involving a CNBC correspondent. Yet he found resurrection in Paramount owner David Ellison, who elevated Shell to his current post from an interim perch with private equity firm RedBird Capital Partners, which helped Ellison’s Skydance Media acquire the studio.
Cipriani is a colorful figure whose exploits as a high roller and government whistleblower have included battles with a Las Vegas casino behemoth as well as an international drug lord. He told THR in September 2025 that a Mark Wahlberg-produced Amazon Prime docuseries about the latter saga, Cocaine Quarterback, portrayed him in a false light. Cipriani has said he’s been in development on a scripted project about the risky business that is his life. The working title is Jackpot, which is the codename the FBI conferred on him.
