"Judge Judy" Sheindlin has been secretly feuding with the top brass at CBS for months, and a new report says the ongoing disagreements led her to call it quits with the network after 25 years.
TMZ reported on Monday — the same day Judy formally announced her decision — that she has been at odds with CBS' regime ever since Les Moonves was shown the door in 2018. Judy and the new top dogs "haven't been seeing eye-to-eye on a lot of things she and Les were square on," the website said.
One source of Judy's alleged discontent is tied to new shows she's developed. With Les at the helm she was allowed to develop new projects, but the new regime has shut her down.
Judy, one of the highest-paid stars on television, will finish out the current season of her reality courtroom show, but then she's set to launch a new show called "Judy Justice" on another network. CBS, however, will continue to offer repeats of her show, as it owns the "Judge Judy" library, which Judy sold to the network for a reported $95 million in 2017.
"I've had a 25-year-long marriage with CBS, and it's been successful," Judy told Ellen DeGeneres on Monday. "Next year will be our 25th season, silver anniversary, and CBS, I think, sort of felt, they wanted to optimally utilize the repeats of my program, because now they have 25 years of reruns. So what they decided to do was to sell a couple of years' worth of reruns."
Judy added, "I'm not tired. So 'Judy Justice' will be coming out a year later… 'Judge Judy' you'll be able to see next year, full year, all new shows. The following couple of years, you should be able to catch all the reruns that are currently carrying Judy, and 'Judy Justice' will be going elsewhere. Isn't that fun?"