By: Carl Schwartzbaum

In a wide-ranging and deeply revealing interview with The New York Times, Shari Redstone — the former chair of Paramount Global and the final steward of her family’s four-decade legacy in American media — spoke with rare candor about the forces that compelled her to sell the storied company and walk away from an empire that once dominated Hollywood and broadcast journalism.

Her remarks, carried in what has described as a “blockbuster interview,” shed new light on the personal, political, and cultural calculations that informed the $8 billion sale of Paramount to Skydance Media, finalized earlier this month. For Redstone, the decision was more than a financial or strategic move. It was, as she recounted, a moral reckoning born of profound disillusionment with CBS’s coverage of Israel, exacerbated by the seismic events of October 7, when Hamas gunmen massacred an estimated 1,200 Israelis in an assault that stunned the world.

“Once that happened, I wanted out,” she told The New York Times. “I wanted to support Israel, and address issues around antisemitism and racism.”

Redstone, 70, has long been known not only as a formidable media executive but also as a woman of strong Jewish faith and heritage. Her ex-husband, Rabbi Yitzhak (Ira) Korff, is a direct descendant of the founder of the Hasidic movement, and her son, Tyler, is himself a rabbi. Those connections, she explained to the Times, were not incidental to her worldview but central in shaping her sense of duty toward the Jewish people and the State of Israel.

For years, Redstone resisted overtures to sell Paramount, rebuffing offers even when the company faced mounting industry pressures from streaming rivals. But The New York Times reported that her frustrations with CBS — particularly its coverage of Israel during moments of war and crisis — had been building steadily, and October 7 was the decisive break..

According to the information provided in the Times report, Redstone was especially disturbed by a “60 Minutes” segment on Gaza, which she believed reflected a one-sided narrative hostile to Israel. The decision by CBS executives to appoint Susan Zirinsky to review the program’s segments, a move Redstone supported but which undermined the vaunted independence of the broadcast, only deepened internal fissures. The long-serving executive producer Bill Owens ultimately departed in protest, a sign of how profound the rupture had become.

In her conversation with The New York Times, Redstone also spoke at length about President Donald Trump’s $20 billion lawsuit against CBS, a case that accused the network of deceptively editing an interview with then–Vice President Kamala Harris. While the case was ultimately settled for $16 million — a resolution Redstone said she personally backed — she admitted to harboring a certain ambivalence.

On the one hand, she recognized that settling the case was in Paramount’s best financial and legal interest.. On the other, she confessed to a private hope that Trump’s legal offensive might achieve a reform of CBS’s coverage that she herself had failed to bring about.

“Part of me thought, maybe Trump could accomplish what I never got done,” Redstone acknowledged to the Times.

The New York Times report noted that this statement reflected not only her long-simmering frustrations with CBS’s editorial choices but also a recognition of Trump’s uncanny ability to upend traditional media power structures. For Redstone, aligning with Trump’s legal fight, however indirectly, became a symbolic gesture of her dissatisfaction with a media culture she regarded as biased, particularly against Israel.

The interview, as recounted by The New York Times, also illuminated the tensions within CBS over its coverage of Israel and its handling of controversial subjects. Redstone defended CBS host Tony Dokoupil after his on-air interview with author Ta-Nehisi Coates drew internal criticism. Dokoupil had pressed Coates on claims that many saw as infused with anti-Israel rhetoric — a stance that earned him reprimands inside the network. Redstone, however, praised him for demonstrating journalistic courage.

Her willingness to intervene in these disputes underscored her dissatisfaction with what she viewed as a drift toward ideological conformity at CBS. Critics within the network accused her of undermining journalistic independence, but Redstone told the Times that her actions were motivated by a desire for fairness, not control.

Complicating the sale of Paramount and the firestorm of media scrutiny was Redstone’s private health battle. As The New York Times report disclosed, she was fighting thyroid cancer during the fraught months of merger negotiations. The process of selling the company, coupled with her declining health, took an immense toll.

“I just wanted to be free,” she said, reflecting on the strain of carrying her family’s legacy while facing relentless public criticism. For Redstone, the sale marked not just a financial divestment but a deeply personal liberation from a burden that had become untenable.

The Redstone family’s stewardship of Paramount spanned four decades, beginning with her father, the legendary Sumner Redstone, who built an empire that included CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, and Paramount Pictures. The family’s influence reshaped American media, producing both cultural triumphs and boardroom wars.

But as The New York Times report observed, the sale to Skydance represents a definitive end to that epoch. By relinquishing control, Redstone not only closed a chapter in media history but also made clear her intention to focus on other priorities: faith, philanthropy, and the fight against antisemitism.

The timing of Redstone’s decision cannot be divorced from the broader political moment. As The New York Times report noted, American media has faced intensifying scrutiny over its coverage of Israel, particularly since the October 7 Hamas attacks and Israel’s subsequent military campaign in Gaza. Critics have accused networks of presenting coverage that minimizes Israeli suffering while amplifying Palestinian grievances. Supporters of such coverage argue it reflects journalistic duty to highlight humanitarian crises.

Redstone’s critique of CBS places her squarely in the camp that believes mainstream outlets have veered into bias. Her willingness to publicly tie her departure from Paramount to her disapproval of the network’s reporting signals just how deeply the issue resonates at the highest levels of American media ownership.

Her interview with The New York Times also tapped into a growing national conversation about antisemitism in cultural and corporate institutions. Redstone’s comments come amid a documented surge in antisemitic incidents across the United States, from campus protests to public displays of hate symbols. In that environment, her insistence on holding media organizations accountable for their portrayal of Israel takes on broader significance.

For Redstone, the issue was not merely editorial bias but a failure of moral responsibility. In her telling, CBS’s coverage had become emblematic of a culture that too often tolerates or even normalizes antisemitic narratives. By stepping away, she hoped to send a message — and perhaps to empower others to confront those same dynamics.

The unusual overlap between Redstone’s discontent and Trump’s lawsuit reflects, as The New York Times report emphasized, a fascinating convergence of interests between a conservative populist president and a liberal-leaning Jewish media executive. Both, in their own ways, saw CBS as emblematic of a hostile media culture. Both sought, through different means, to rein it in.

Though Redstone made clear she did not embrace Trump’s politics wholesale, her acknowledgment that “part of me thought, maybe Trump could accomplish what I never got done” reveals the extent of her exasperation. It also highlights the unpredictable ways in which the Israel question — and the fight against antisemitism — can reorder traditional partisan lines.

As the dust settles on the Paramount sale, Redstone’s future remains an open question. Her interview with The New York Times suggested that she intends to devote her time and resources to causes closer to her heart: Jewish education, combating antisemitism, and supporting Israel at a time of unprecedented global challenge.

Her departure from the media stage marks a watershed moment. It leaves open pressing questions about the future of CBS, about the role of billionaire owners in shaping news coverage, and about the intersection of personal conviction and corporate governance.

Yet perhaps the most enduring image from her Times interview is not that of a mogul selling an empire, but of a woman confronting both illness and ideology, choosing to walk away rather than remain complicit in what she saw as injustice.

“I just wanted to be free,” she said. And with those words, as The New York Times concluded, Shari Redstone brought one of America’s great media dynasties to a close.