Sumner Redstone Trial Captivates Hollywood and Wall Street
NY Times Emily steel
The media mogul Sumner M. Redstone was in the middle of a bitter divorce from his wife of 52 years in December 2000 when he was spotted with a decades-younger woman at the New York premiere of the Paramount movie “What Women Want.”
His companion was Manuela Herzer, then a 36-year-old single mother of three. The pair met the previous year, and they dated for about two years. When he asked her to marry him in 2000, she declined.
Yet Ms. Herzer remained in the orbit of Mr. Redstone’s life as a friend, even as he cycled through another marriage and a series of girlfriends. He lavished gifts, real estate and money on her — more than $70 million in cash and other assets since 2009. He named her a beneficiary of his personal trust, listing her as “family.” Upon his death, he planned to leave her an additional $50 million and his $20 million Los Angeles mansion, according to various court filings.
Now Ms. Herzer is challenging Mr. Redstone’s mental competence in a salacious lawsuit she filed last November, not long after she was suddenly ejected from Mr. Redstone’s life and his home, where she had maintained a residence for about two years. She also was removed from his will and from a directive that would have given her supervision of his health care.
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