MEET MY DEMANDS OR... I Quit! Judge Judy Sheindlin

Judge Judy to Exec: After ruling for 21 years on her hit court show, lays down the law with CBS

It’s a tradition. Every three years, Judge Judy Sheindlin heads to The Grill on the Alley steak house in Beverly Hills to have dinner with an exec from the business affairs department at CBS, which owns the company that produces her wildly successful syndicated TV show, Judge Judy. She brings with her an envelope that contains a dollar figure and a list of two or three requirements she has in order for her to agree to renew her contract. “We sit across the table and I hand him the envelope and I say, ‘Don’t read it now. Let’s have a nice dinner. Call me tomorrow,’” she explains. “‘If you want [the show again], fine.’”

Otherwise, she’ll walk. In a recently unsealed deposition, obtained exclusively by In Touch, the no-nonsense TV judge makes it clear that if CBS doesn’t meet her demands, she’s quitting and tak

ing the show with her. “They can’t find another [Judy],” the 74-year-old flatly says. “They’ve tried. So far, they haven’t.” Judy delivered the threat in a nasty ongoing lawsuit between Rebel Entertainment Partners and CBS. The talent agency is suing the network for profits from Judy’s show it claims were withheld from Rebel. Court papers reveal Judy’s show has grossed a jaw-dropping $1.7 billion in its 21 years on the air. CBS pays her the money they do “because they have no choice,” she explains, unapologetically defending her $47 milliona-year salary. “They know otherwise, I’d take the same people with me that are producing the show now and I’d go do it myself.”

Though she’s not a defendant, Judy has been at the center of the 2016 lawsuit, which is set to go to trial next year. Rebel — a successor to the talent agency that originally packaged Judge Judy decades ago — claims CBS has been stiffing Rebel on its cut of profits from both Judge Judy and its spinoff, Hot Bench, for nearly seven years. The lawsuit also claims CBS has diminished Rebel’s profit share by licensing the shows to CBS affiliates at bargain rates. As for allegations that CBS is willingly overpaying Judy, she says it’s a “ludicrous” suggestion, because CBS must pay her whatever she asks for

if they want to keep making her show.

There’s no room for negotiations. Judy says a CBS distribution exec once tried to haggle with her — and she shut him down. “I handed him my envelope and he said, ‘Judy, I have my own envelope.’ And I said, ‘I don’t want to look at it.’ He said, ‘ Why not? Maybe it’s more than what’s in your envelope,’” says Judy. “And I said, ‘This isn’t a negotiation.’ And he put his envelope away and they gave me what I wanted.”

A happy camper, Judy re-upped in August to keep her show on the air through the 2020–2021 season. She also sold her library of more than 10,000 episodes to CBS for over $95 million. But once her new contract is up, they’d better give her what she wants, because she’s made it clear she will quit if she doesn’t get what she wants. “Their back’s to the wall,” Judy says in her deposition, shrewdly calling CBS her “partner,” not her “boss.” “The Judy program is all over the world.” ◼