Sumner Redstone Gave Millions to Numerous Mistresses, Ex-Girlfriend Alleges
Viacom mogul Sumner Redstone gave many millions of dollars to numerous mistresses — including a reality show producer, a model, and the sister of a flight attendant on his corporate jet — according to a new lawsuit filed on Monday.
The suit, filed by Redstone’s ex-girlfriend Sydney Holland, comes in response to Redstone’s effort to recoup $150 million bestowed to Holland and another ex-companion, Manuela Herzer. The counterclaim alleges that Redstone, 93, routinely gave millions to several female companions, and was mentally competent to do so.
“The lurid nature of these relationships and the significant amounts of money that Redstone paid to these women are directly at issue,” the suit contends.
The suit alleges that Redstone gave $21 million to a mistress who was an aspiring reality show producer; $18 million to a flight attendant on the CBS corporate jet; $6 million to the flight attendant’s sister, whom he slept with; $10-11 million to a woman he met through Patti Stanger, who ran a dating show called “The Millionaire Matchmaker”; $7 million to another mistress “who claimed to be a model”; $6 million to a friend of his grandson’s girlfriend, in addition to finding a job for the friend at Showtime; and $1.5 million to another mistress. He also gave undisclosed amounts to a USC student and a Paramount employee to whom he was once engaged, and paid the USC student’s tuition, according to the suit.
The allegations cover the period when Holland and Redstone were living together, from June 2011 through September 2015, when Holland confessed that she had been unfaithful to Redstone and he threw her out of his house. Holland is now seeking financial support for herself and her daughter, plus legal fees and a half-interest in his Beverly Park home and half of his stock and other investment holdings.
In the lawsuit, Holland threatens to call Redstone’s “celebrity friends” as well as Viacom and CBS executives as witnesses.
In response, Redstone’s legal team called the cross-complaint a “work of fiction punctuated by not-so-subtle threats of extortion and an overwhelming stench of greed.”
“The critical witnesses will not be Mr. Redstone’s ‘celebrity friends’ but instead the nurses and household staff members who, unlike Ms. Holland, were by his side day and night,” Redstone’s attorneys stated. “It will be for the jury to weigh the contemporaneous notes and trial testimony of those disinterested witnesses against Ms. Holland’s narcissistic false narrative. In the end, we are confident that justice will be done.”
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