Sumner Redstone’s live-in girlfriend, Sydney Holland, is a control freak who forced the staff at his LA mansion to take polygraph tests after her laptop went missing and then had most of them fired, according to court documents filed on Friday.
Redstone, the majority owner of CBS and Viacom, is being dragged into a bitter court battle between Holland and his former protegee Heather Naylor.
Holland, 43, is suing Naylor, 33, for $1 million — claiming the star of the short-lived MTV show “The Electric Barbarellas” stole her laptop computer containing “private and confidential” photographs.
That usually means X-rated.
Naylor countersued, charging that Holland used her influence, as she took control of Redstone’s life, to get the show canceled.
Redstone is 91 and worth $6.2 billion.
Redstone reportedly pushed MTV execs to air the show — about a girl group described as a cross between the Pussycat Dolls and the Spice Girls, but raunchier — and gave Naylor $157,000 worth of Viacom stock.
In motions filed Friday, Naylor’s pit bull lawyer Neville Johnson states, “Because Holland is a beneficiary under Redstone’s will, she did not like that Redstone was spending his time and his resources with a free thinker like Naylor.”
Court papers state that “Holland grew jealous of Naylor’s relationship with Redstone and made efforts to cut off all ties between Redstone and Naylor so that Holland could control Redstone for her own economic advantage.”
Holland allegedly had all the phone numbers changed so Naylor couldn’t reach Redstone — and all of Naylor’s contacts removed from Redstone’s database so that he couldn’t reach her, a source familiar with the case told me.
Since moving into his Beverly Park mansion in LA, Holland has fired most of the household staff, including Carlos Martinez, Redstone’s butler for 13 years, whom Holland is also suing on grounds that he conspired in the computer theft.
Holland doesn’t trust newly hired staff either.
“She forces them to take weekly polygraph tests,’ said one source.
“Sydney Holland’s decision to sue Mr. Martinez is the biggest mistake she has ever made,” Martinez’ lawyer Bryan Freedman told the Hollywood Reporter.
Holland, who claims to be a nationally respected marketing executive, luxury brand leader, philanthropist, producer and entrepreneur, allegedly met Redstone through a dating Web site that matches millionaire men with younger women.
A spokesperson for Sumner, who is not a party to the litigation, had no comment. The next court date is Aug. 14.