Contract ‘smear’

JUDGE Judy Sheindlin is putting her money where her mouth is, literally. Sheindlin has been hit with a lawsuit by Rebel Entertainment Partners alleging that she stiffed the company out of profits when she bought and sold the show’s library rights in a deal with CBS in 2015. But Sheindlin told us in response to the suit, referring to Rebel Entertainment president Richard Lawrence: “I have not seen the complaint and can therefore only comment on what I have read, which suggests that I am being sued for ‘breach of contract.’ If that is the basis of Mr. Lawrence’s lawsuit, here is my challenge: If Mr. Lawrence can produce a contract, signed by me and Mr. Lawrence on the same page, at any time in history from the beginning of time, I will toast that contract, smear it with cream cheese and eat it on national television.” The suit against Sheindlin, CBS and its Big Ticket Entertainment division is just the latest in a long-simmering legal war involving Rebel and the show. Rebel has reportedly settled a suit with CBS claiming that it was shorted profits stemming from Sheindlin’s salary. (Rebel is the company that succeeded the talent agency that originally packaged “Judge Judy.”) Now Rebel says it’s owed money from the sale of the show’s library, and the new suit even claims incompetency on the part of disgraced CBS mogul Les Moonves in the library sale. CBS did not comment. Rebel did not immediately get back to us.