Moguls could star in ‘Gropey Old Men’
One week. Two crusty old media moguls — both undone in court papers by their own loose zippers: Sumner Redstone against Roger Ailes in a race to the bottom of the barrel.
To be fair, disgraced Fox News Channel boss Rodger Ailes has been under fire for sexual harassment since last summer, but just when the noise around his case was dying down, along comes Fox 5 reporter Lidia Curanaj on Tuesday with a salacious new lawsuit.
Tales of Redstone’s indiscretions have been spreading foryears.
Meanwhile, in the case of Curanaj, the reporter alleges that Ailes denied her a job at Fox News Channel because a mutual friend said she would never sleep with the media baron.
But it was nothing compared to the sleazy allegations in a lawsuit against 93-year-old chief of the parent company of Viacom, Sumner Redstone who is now so enfeebled that some claim he gets all of his nutrients through a feeding tube.
Redstone, who announced Friday he will step down from Viacom’s board in February, also owns a majority share of CBS.
An ex-girlfriend of his, Sydney Holland, who he has already allegedly given over $70 million, is suing him for more.
She alleges he paid out millions to different women, including $18 million to a flight attendant and another $6 million to her sister whom he bedded.
Ailes was forced out of Fox in July after he and FNC were sued by former anchor Gretchen Carlson.
They paid him a cool $40 million to leave — and then allegedly paid Carlson another $20 million to settle. Ailes then went on to become an adviser for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Redstone, who is estimated to be worth more than $5 billion, has not rebounded as gracefully. The latest lawsuit against the mogul comes amid a nasty battle between him, his daughter Shari Redstone, 61, and Viacom brass for control of the company. Both Ailes and Redstone could have saved themselves a lot of humiliation if — as any 3-year-old would tell you — they had just kept their hands to themselves.
Politico terminated its contract Wednesday with celebrated journalist Julia Ioffe after she posted a graphic tweet voicing her displeasure that Ivanka Trump will get office space in the White House typically reserved for the First Lady.
“Either Trump is f---ing his daughter or he is shirking nepotism laws. Which is worse?” she wrote, including a link to The Hill, which broke the news.
In a memo to staffers, Politico brass John Harris and Carrie Budoff Brown ripped Ioffe — who they revealed was already leaving the political news site to work for The Atlantic.
“Gratuitous opinion has absolutely zero value for our readers and should have zero place in our work,” they said. Later in the memo they noted: “There will be little tolerance for this type of behavior.”