He said hello by the community mailbox. I lived in a Santa Monica tower — beside the sea, where I think I saw Honolulu in a daze — and R.J. Cipriani wanted to help as an Ocean Avenue neighbor. He knew I was a national sports commentator and thought I had corrupt bosses in 2010, dismissing ESPN as a foul place and asking about my attorneys.
I said I would handle the law — and I did, though the media never properly reported the story. My bosses? Jesus, I should have hired Cipriani. Little did I know he wanted to take down Hollywood years later — first with legal pressure on Jeff Shell, who was forced to resign his second major role as president of Paramount Skydance, and shifting his wicked gaze toward Ari Emanuel, who runs a prominent Beverly Hills agency that controls UFC and WWE. He pounds them with scary lawsuits and deposition demands.
When in doubt, look to a hardass high-roller who grew up in the mean Philadelphia streets. What if Cipriani chased ESPN, where I appeared for eight years as an “Around The Horn” regular, and AOL, where I wrote a column? Hmmm. One night, we joined R.J. and his wife for dinner at Bestia. He paused to visit a nearby table.
Bob Iger was sitting there with his wife, Willow Bay. Would Cipriani actually tell him, as he alerted me, that Iger never should have released me from the program? He was gone for 15 minutes. He returned and said he had the office number of Disney’s CEO, calling it that week. Do you know how weird it was, watching this man chew fat with Iger?
If this is how the entertainment business operates — allowing Cipriani a chance to mess with corporate powerhouses — why did I hire the best possible attorney in Los Angeles? I should have let the gambling madman make calls throughout the industry, though I hate gambling. Whoosh, I’d have regained my regular role on “ATH” and my sports column at AOL. Instead, I dealt with an attorney, who was fired, and opted for another lawyer, who allowed me to walk to a better world with my pockets full.
Imagine if he blows away Shell, Emanuel and Jim Berkus? All because the industry did not appease Cipriani and his wife, Greice Santo, along with a reality TV show they wanted to air. As time passes, he is a regular on Page Six of the New York Post, which now has a California edition that highlights him as he freaks out studio chiefs. Vanity Fair profiled him recently and ran his uncompromising face.
“When you’re the high roller and you’re betting millions of dollars,” said Cipriani, “other people want to know you, want to be around you.”
Not me. I was just getting my mail.
Every so often, I’d run into Cipriani at Hillstone on Wilshire Boulevard. The last time we talked, he said Shohei Ohtani was guilty of knowing his interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, had placed more than 19,000 bets in a two-year period. He spoke loudly, within earshot of the bartenders and guests. He said it was impossible: Ohtani could not have been unaware that MIzuhara had stolen almost $17 million from his account. Cipriani was busy making calls to investigative reporters, including ESPN’s Tisha Thompson. I reminded him that the network is in bed with everyone in sports, including Major League Baseball and the Los Angeles Dodgers. There was no chance he would convince someone to run the Ohtani story.
But I have alluded to it on Substack, wondering often why commissioner Rob Manfred never seriously investigated Ohtani. The Dodgers skated and make annual fortunes off the two-way beast. In California, where sports betting is not legal, Ohtani could have been punished for not letting MLB know about Mizuhara, his close friend for years. How many times did Cipriani say Ohtani should have been banned from the game?
Amazing how everyone at the restaurant listened. This week, no one is bigger in town than Cipriani, who is 64 going on 30. I live in Paris at the moment and was flipping through TV channels. “Cocaine Quarterback” was playing on Amazon Prime. Guess who alerted the feds and told the story of Owen Hanson, a USC football player who became a convicted drug trafficker? R.J. His photo was on the credits.
So, let’s do it: Call Iger. Tell him to put me back on my show.
Oh, ESPN canceled it last year. And Iger was replaced as chief executive.
Look out, Josh D’Amaro.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.
