Sumner Redstone 'Electric Barbarellas' Bribery Vociemail, Audio

by NowPublic Staff | July 21, 2010 at 11:38 am

1513 views | 0 Recommendations | 0 comments

Daily Beast Journalist Peter Laurie Discloses Viacom CEO's Sumner Redstone Voicemail And Alleged Bribery Attempt
Sumner Redstone must really love the Electric Barbarellas. Why else would he call and leave a voice mail for Daily Beast writer Peter Laurie asking him to reveal the anonymous source behind a story on the girl band the Electric Barbarellas.

The source apparently told Peter Laurie that the Electric Barbarellas were a pet project of Redstone and the Viacom CEO forced its subsidiary MTV to air a reality TV series that chronicles the story of the Electric Barbarellas - apparently over the objections of MTV Networks CEO Judy McGrath.
Peter Laurie takes it from there.

How do I know this? Because Redstone, in a three-minute message left on my office voicemail and in a follow up interview yesterday afternoon, offered to both reward and protect me if I gave up my sources for the piece. (That, of course, will never happen!)

Listen to the Sumner Redstone voice mail to Peter Laurie of the Daily Beast:

Summer Redstone apparently told Laurie it was the "best show he had seen in 10 years." Laurie also says Redstone spoke to Electric Barbarellas show-runner (producer). An odd fact usually the CEO of a company like Viacom would not even bother with such granular conversation with an MTV producer or director lever. The fact that Sumner Redstone took such a particular interest in the Electric Barbarellas is shocking.

Other media reports say Sumner Redstone, 87, had bizarre fixation on the band's lead singer Heather Naylor, 29.

Viacom downplayed Redstone's obsession with the group and its lead singer/songwriter Heather Naylor -- a sexy Southern California blonde who on her Web site boasts of sleeping with bandmates -- even as MTV execs griped that she was a stinker.

But MTV execs were aghast after Redstone trotted Naylor, 29, around Los Angeles and blew $500,000 flying her from coast to coast in efforts to win a recording contract for the Barbarellas, according to a June 2 article in The Daily Beast.

Heather Naylor is listed as the owner of the trademark for the Electric Barbarellas TV show. Apparently, the show is still in the pilot phase.

The term Electric Barbarellas is also the name of a Duran Duran song