Jeff Shell at UFC 324 on January 24, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Zuffa LLC Hollywood loves a second act — or so the saying goes — just not in the case of Jeff Shell.
When news broke Wednesday morning that Shell’s comeback as president of Paramount was officially over, the Melrose lot where he worked erupted in celebration, multiple sources tell Page Six Hollywood.
“Nobody misses him,” says one high-ranking executive. “He alienated all of the content people.”
Insiders say Shell, who was handpicked for the president job by Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, clashed with other top executives including co-chair Josh Greenstein and global marketing and distribution chief Josh Goldstine, whom Shell fired at Universal eight years earlier.
Even more problematic for Shell, according to multiple sources, was that Larry Ellison — one of the richest people in the world who was bankrolling Paramount’s takeover of Warner Bros — didn’t like him.
Insiders say Shell has been out of the picture since February, when the studio first became aware of a threatened lawsuit from high-stakes gambler RJ Cipriani, whose draft complaint contained alleged text exchanges between the two men.
Those exchanges appeared to show Shell discussing “very hush hush” details of a $7.7 billion Paramount+ streaming deal with the UFC before it was public. The slow drip of damaging headlines over the past few weeks made it clear that his exit was nigh. It was just a matter of when and how brutal that exit would be.
For now, Paramount has no plans to replace Shell with an interim president.
One source noted to P6H that Paramount’s org chart never made much sense. Even with the title of president Shell had no direct reports from the content side. Also, the fact that Ellison was able to pull off the takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery — which required closing deals with the sovereign funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — all while Shell was being investigated for his conduct suggests to some that his role was unnecessary.
Technically speaking, Shell, who also was a Paramount Skydance board member, resigned from Paramount, which was not the case three years ago when he was fired for cause at NBCUniversal. In that instance, Shell walked away empty handed from his role as chief executive officer of NBCUniversal after an investigation found that he allegedly sexually harassed former CNBC anchor Hadley Gamble. As a result, he lost out on more than $43 million in stock options and equity awards.
This time around, it remains unclear what, if anything, he is taking with him.
Sources associated with the now-unemployed executive noted that the studio’s official statement made it clear that Paramount’s internal investigation of Shell, conducted by the law firm Gibson Dunn, cleared him of wrongdoing.
However, while the statement did say that a “complete and thorough” investigation found no “securities law violation,” it made no mention of breach of contract. (Then again, Paramount is in a bit of a bind due to Cipriani’s lawsuit. The blackjack player sued Shell for $150 million in early March but then filed an amended complaint in which he added the Ellisons and every Paramount board member with the exception of Sherry Lansing as defendants. A Shell violation still would potentially leave the studio with legal exposure.)
Paramount has remained tightlipped surrounding Shell’s departure and offered no guidance on his unfulfilled contract, as reps for both Paramount and Shell declined comment.
If nothing else, Shell’s politics made him an odd fit at Paramount. Both Larry and David Ellison have close relationships with the Trump administration and have made high-profile appearances at the White House. Several of the studio’s top executives are MAGA-friendly including Greenstein and CBS News chief Bari Weiss. By contrast, Shell’s sister worked in the Obama administration while his wife is close to Kamala Harris.
For his part, Cipriani was taking a victory lap on Wednesday afternoon, gloating over Shell’s demise and questioning some of the language in Paramount’s statement. “The studio statement is complete bulls–t. Why else would he step down?” Cipriani commented to P6H. “Paramount has a $150 million reason to give that bogus statement. No one steps down [from a job] paying $5 million per year and [tens of] millions in stock options. Do the Ellisons think people are dumb? They’re spinning their tires. Do they forget who I am in the PR world? I don’t just do damage control. I do damage.”
