Now we know why Vince McMahon stepped down from WWE in 2022, and came back six months later to find a buyer.
McMahon, it would appear, needed to cash out before the sh-t that finally hit the fan on Thursday, in the form of a bombshell lawsuit alleging all manner of depraved, corporate-sponsored sexual abuse, would wreck the value of the multibillion-dollar company that his father had handed to him for a mere $1 million of other people’s money in 1982.
That bombshell lawsuit made public on Thursday alleges that McMahon and his former top deputy, John Laurinaitas, forced a former WWE female employee into sex acts and the production of sexualized content that was used to recruit “a former UFC Heavyweight Champion,” identified by the Wall Street Journal as Brock Lesnar, to re-sign with the company.
The suit, filed by the former WWE employee, Janel Grant, lists McMahon and Laurinaitas as co-defendants, and in addition to seeking unspecified monetary damages, also asks the court to release Grant from an NDA that she signed while still employed with WWE.
The lawsuit is the latest round of fire at McMahon, who I have to mention here, for my local readers, has ties to Waynesboro – McMahon is a 1964 graduate of Fishburne Military School, and as an alum has been a generous benefactor to the private prep school – regarding his sexual dalliances.
McMahon was still the CEO of WWE when he stepped down under fire in the summer of 2022, after the Wall Street Journal reported about an investigation by the company’s board of directors into alleged hush-money payments to women who had accused him of sexual misconduct.
Details soon emerged about how McMahon had made payments totaling $19.6 million dating back to 2007 related to alleged sexual misconduct.
McMahon returned to his CEO position six months later to lead the effort to find a buyer, leading to the blockbuster merger with UFC under the TKO Group Holdings umbrella, which created a sports-entertainment company valued initially at $21 billion, to be headed up by McMahon as the executive chairman of the board.
That status is very much up in the air now, with TKO saying, in a statement, on Thursday, that “Mr. McMahon does not control TKO, nor does he oversee the day-to-day operations of WWE. While this matter predates our TKO executive team’s tenure at the company, we take Ms. Grant’s horrific allegations very seriously, and are addressing this matter internally.”
On the horrific allegations front, yeah, what the lawsuit spells out is horrific, if not worse.
According to the suit, McMahon and Laurinaitas both engaged in sexual assault and trafficking of Grant “both for their own pleasure and as a pawn to secure talent deals with prospective wrestlers they were recruiting.”
McMahon, specifically, per the suit, “repeatedly used sex toys named after other WWE employees, wrestlers and performers to sexually groom Ms. Grant for trafficking to those same people,”
It gets worse, if that’s possible.
McMahon, according to the suit, “would shower Ms. Grant with gifts and empty work promotions, while at the same time threatening her livelihood and her reputation if she wouldn’t succumb to his increasingly depraved sexual demands, including disseminating pornography of Ms. Grant to ‘thousands’ of individuals and engaging in sex acts with other WWE employees — some of whom were complete strangers.”
Not done yet with how it gets worse.
The suit listed examples of McMahon’s “extreme depravity,” one occurring on May 9, 2020, when Grant alleges that McMahon “defecated on Ms. Grant during a threesome, and then commanded her to continue pleasuring his ‘friend’ — with feces in her hair and running down her back — while McMahon went to the bathroom to shower off.”
Still not done.
Another one on the depravity front, dating to June 2021, McMahon and Laurinaitas, according to the suit, “sexually assaulted Ms. Grant inside Laurinaitis’ office” at WWE’s Stamford, Conn., headquarters.
“Behind a locked door,” the suit alleges, “the two men cornered her and pulled her in between them, forcibly touched her, before ultimately putting her on top of a table in between them. She begged them to stop, but they forced themselves on her, each taking turns restraining her for the other, while saying ‘No means yes’ and ‘Take it, bitch.’”
The part of this story that involves Lesnar, who is not named as a defendant, is also more than a bit creepy.
According to the suit, Grant was told by McMahon to create “personalized sexual content” for Lesnar, as part of the effort being made by McMahon to get the former WWE champ to return to the company.
The suit alleges that Lesnar had told McMahon that he enjoyed the content, and that McMahon told Grant that Lesnar had re-signed with WWE, in part, so that he could have sexual relations with Grant.
Things advanced from there, according to the suit, with McMahon giving Lesnar Grant’s phone number, Lesnar requesting more sexual images from Grant, and attempting to set up a play date that got scuttled by a snowstorm that disrupted Lesnar’s travel plans.
The suit goes on to allege that when Linda McMahon, the former two-time failed Connecticut U.S. Senate candidate who went on to head up the Small Business Administration in the presidential administration of Donald Trump, found out what was going on, Grant “was abruptly pressured to resign from the WWE and forced to sign an NDA days before a major financial deadline for the organization under the guise that Mr. McMahon would ‘protect her’ financially and reputationally, and pay her $3 million.
“However,” the suit alleges, “Mr. McMahon later refused to make payments to Ms. Grant, falsely claiming that she had leaked information to the press.”
According to the suit. McMahon paid Grant $1 million in February 2022, but McMahon “failed to make any further payments.”
A spokesperson for McMahon reached out to the wrestling news website Wrestling Inc. to issue a statement on the allegations:
“This lawsuit is replete with lies, obscene made-up instances that never occurred, and a vindictive distortion of the truth. He will vigorously defend himself.”
Grant’s attorney, Ann Callis, also issued a statement on the case:
“Today’s complaint seeks to hold accountable two WWE executives who sexually assaulted and trafficked Plaintiff Janel Grant, as well as the organization that facilitated or turned a blind eye to the abuse and then swept it under the rug. She is an incredibly private and courageous person who has suffered deeply at the hands of Mr. McMahon and Mr. Laurinaitis. Ms. Grant hopes that her lawsuit will prevent other women from being victimized. The organization is well aware of Mr. McMahon’s history of depraved behavior, and it’s time that they take responsibility for the misconduct of its leadership.
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Chris Graham
