Vince McMahon, WWE co-founder in 1982, resigned as TKO executive chairman and board member after a sexual misconduct lawsuit surfaced. The plaintiff, Janel Grant, a former WWE employee, alleges McMahon forced her into a sexual relationship to keep her job and shared pornographic images of her with other employees. McMahon denies these allegations but stepped down to respect the WWE Universe, business, board members, shareholders, partners, and employees.
In a statement provided to ESPN, McMahon denied the allegations, stating, “I stand by my prior statement that Ms. Grant’s lawsuit is replete with lies, obscene made-up instances that never occurred, and is a vindictive distortion of the truth.”
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Despite his denial, McMahon stepped down from his position “out of respect for the WWE Universe, the extraordinary TKO business, its board members and shareholders, partners and constituents, and all of the employees and Superstars who helped make WWE into the global leader it is today.”
This isn’t McMahon’s first brush with such allegations. In 2022, WWE investigated an inappropriate relationship between McMahon and Grant, leading to a settlement where McMahon paid Grant $1 million. Grant now seeks to void the nondisclosure agreement and receive unspecified damages, also implicating a former UFC heavyweight champion in the lawsuit.
Some of the allegations from Grant provided by the Wall Street Journal:
- On June 15, 2021, Grant alleges McMahon and another executive took her into a private, locked locker room and took turns sexually assaulting her while other staff were working.
- On June 23, 2021, inside a private locker room, McMahon forced himself on her over a massage table. Later that day a staffer delivered $15,000 in Bloomingdale’s gift cards to her office.
- In May 2020, McMahon sent Grant the following text message, “i’m the only one who owns U and controls who I want to f— U.”
- Grant alleges that McMahon shared nude photos and explicit videos of her without her consent to unnamed WWE employees, executives and stars.
- A July 2020, text message stated other people in WWE wanted to have sex with her after seeing photos of her on McMahon’s phone. McMahon allegedly wrote in a follow-up text, “She may scream and try to say NO!!although it would B difficult to say anything with a c— down her throat.”
- In July 2021, Grant created “personalized sexual content” for a WWE talent that McMahon was trying to re-sign. The lawsuit refers to them as both a UFC fighter and WWE talent, however, WSJ named the individual as Brock Lesnar based on identification from sources familiar with the matter.
Grant’s representatives stated that she hoped to come forward with her allegations to prevent other women from being victimized. McMahon previously stepped down as WWE’s CEO in 2022 following a similar investigation. An internal probe by an outside law firm found $14.6 million in payments by McMahon, which WWE said he repaid. He later returned to the organization.
Despite these controversies, McMahon is credited with revolutionizing the pro wrestling industry and bringing it into the mainstream. Under his leadership, the annual WrestleMania extravaganza became a cultural phenomenon, and this year’s 40th edition will take place in Philadelphia.
In other recent WWE news, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was appointed to the TKO board and received the trademark to his famous moniker. The company also secured a $5 billion deal with Netflix to stream “Raw,” its weekly flagship program, beginning next January. “Friday Night SmackDown” will shift from Fox to USA in the fall, while monthly premium live events are streamed on Peacock. One of WWE’s top four annual events, Royal Rumble, takes place this weekend in St. Petersburg, Florida.
TonyTodd says
If they’re going after Vince they need to go after everyone else including the dead people like Pat Patterson whom has an award and is praised by the gay community even though allegations of him and 2 other gay men were forcing themselves on male employees and even children but Vince covered it up for them. Then there’s Jim Cornette who talks against this stuff calling everyone else names but he’s been on record being racist and had his own similar allegations made, Paul Heyman another who’s probably done things too and failed to pay his employees, then there’s Brock Lesnar who’s in this suit, Triple H who’s in charge now he got his ex-girlfriend now deceased Chyna on drugs, cheated on her with his now wife Vince’s daughter, let his friend Sean Walkman aka XPac rape her, and right before got Vince to fire her with support from Vince’s daughter. Randy Orton also has allegations of misconduct where he shot fire crackers at employees, Hulk Hogan everyone knows, Ric Flair, CM Punk mistreated women in the locker room and may be a pedophile groomer just look up his wife he met her as a kid when she met his girlfriend at the time Lita who was her favorite wrestler he also met Cora Jade when she was 14 multiple times he’s very friendly with her and since she’s broken up with her boyfriend. Cory Graves is inappropriate backstage and bullied staff, Seth Rollins also allegations from his ex’s, Kenny Omega potential groomer, Shawn Michaels who is in charge of development talent responsible for backstage issues and rape, Tommy Dreamer in the assault category with all of the ECW and attitude era wrestlers like everyone needs to be investigated if Vince goes down he should drag them all with him. Dana White is no better than Vince but he remains at UFC.
Tjonfy says
Don’t forget Grizzly Smith a pedo the father of Jake Roberts , Darby Allin, Chris Jericho, Max Caster, Tony Khan, Britt Baker, Thunder Rosa, Marty Jannetty who raped women with Shawn Michaels, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Lex Luger, Eric Bischoff, MJF, Adam Page, Dax Harwood, Cash Wheeler, Jimmy Snuka, Jimmy Uso, Bret Cocaine Hart, John China Cena, Xavier Woods, Liv Morgan, so many from the past and even now involved in this shit. Cornette does talk all that shut but was accused of the same with no investigation funny he’s defending Vince he should be scared Vince who could expose it all if he goes down take the whole business with him.