Unscripted: The Epic Battle for a Media Empire and the Redstone Family Legacy

Unscripted is the shocking inside story of the struggle for power and control at Paramount Global, the multibillion-dollar entertainment empire controlled by the Redstone family, and the dysfunction, misconduct, and deceit that threatened the future of the company, from the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists who first broke the news.

In 2016, the fate of Paramount Global—an empire that included Paramount, CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, Showtime, and Simon & Schuster—hung precariously in the balance. Its founder and head, ninety-three-year-old Sumner M. Redstone, was facing a very public lawsuit brought by a former romantic companion—a lawsuit that placed Sumner’s deteriorating health and questionable judgment under a harsh light.

Shari Redstone, Sumner’s daughter, seemed to be her father’s heir apparent, but as Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalists James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams explore in their explosive new book and instant New York Times bestseller, Unscripted, Shari was dropped into a shark tank of male Hollywood executives, with hostile back-room machinations that put her at odds not only with her father but a cast of rivals, schemers, and hangers-on.

The secret inner workings of public companies and their boards usually stay secret, but Stewart and Abrams deliver in Unscripted an unvarnished look at a wealthy, dysfunctional family in the throes of seismic change, and the downfall of a once-victorious multibillion-dollar entertainment empire in the wake of greed, sexual exploitation, and corporate malfeasance.

Rachel Abrams is a reporter and senior producer for the television documentary series The New York Times Presents. Prior to that, she was part of the reporting team that won a Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2018 for reporting on the Harvey Weinstein sexual misconduct allegations. 

About the moderator

Brian Stelter is the New York Times bestselling author of three books: Top of the Morning, Hoax, and Network of Lies. Previously, Stelter was a media reporter at the New York Times and the anchor of CNN’s Reliable Sources. He is currently a special correspondent for Vanity Fair.