Exclusive | ShopHQ, owned by billionaire who famously gutted Sports Illustrated, accused of stiffing suppliers
A billionaire who famously fired a slew of senior writers at Sports Illustrated during a 2024 business dispute is drawing controversy again — as his decades-old shopping destination ShopHQ has been accused of selling goods without paying suppliers, The Post has learned.Morris & David’s diamond bracelets, rings and necklaces have sold briskly on ShopHQ during the past year – but the New York City jeweler claims it hasn’t received a penny for the $200,000 in bling thanks to the company owned by Manoj Bhargava, the billionaire founder of 5-Hour Energy drinks.ShopHQ suppliers allege that under Bhargava — whose company Arena Group did a stint as publisher of Sports Illustrated in which the Group gutted its staff and Bhargava was accused by the brand’s owner of behaving like a “gangster” — the 35-year-old home shopping TV network began stiffing them early last year.“I’ve been on the air with them for 25 years and had a good run with them making over $150 million in sales,” said Samuel Behnam, owner of Samuel B, a jeweler based in Great Neck, Long Island.“I have lost some money — $30,000.
Right now, I have not done any new business with them.”In what turned out to be the last days on cable-TV packages nationwide, ShopHQ last spring began laying off hundreds of employees — and allegedly stopped paying its suppliers.That was after ShopHQ had launched an ill-fated push online that included video-on-demand and live streams hosted by influencers.“Think awkward Instagrams mashed with shopping cart pop-ups,” Sophia Reynolds wrote on the blog Business Divers.“Social selling is brutal when you’re up against Amazon Lives and TikTok shops with Gen Z hosts who grew up on this stuff,” Reynolds wrote.ShopHQ went dark altogether in April.
Ahead of the surprise shutdown, David Yeroshalmi, owner of Morris & David, claims his business in New York City’s Diamond District had shipped some 500 baubles worth nearly $200,000 to ShopHQ’s Mi...