The battle between Hollywood blogger Nikki Finke and Deadline.com goes deeper than the restraining order and injunction Finke claims her former boss Jay Penske is pursuing to shut down her new, competing site.
Sources say Penske Media is also pushing to evict Finke from her home — a corporate apartment where she still pays rent.
A source told us “they’ve repeatedly threatened to evict” Finke, even though she pays for the pad, and added that Deadline keeps kicking Finke off its list of e-mail alert recipients although she keeps signing up.
Deadline’s Mike Fleming has written that Penske “allows her to stay in a million-dollar corporate apartment at heavy discount.”
A source said Finke and Penske were “a phone call away” from reconciling last month. But Deadline issued a June statement saying, “The entire Deadline team made the decision that it was best to continue forward without [her].”
The sides differ wildly as to the end-date Finke’s non-compete clause.
A judge will rule Tuesday on the restraining order, we hear. Reps didn’t get back to us.