Vince McMahon Sex-Trafficking Suit Raises Question of Who Knew What, When

For most of his public career, professional wrestling impresario and World Wrestling Entertainment founder Vince McMahon has stood accused of being a sexual predator.

In 1992, Rita Chatterton, a former referee with what was then called the World Wrestling Federation, said that McMahon had raped her in a limousine six years before. He denied the claims and sued her, before eventually dropping that suit. Thirty years later, when New York State opened a window during which victims of sex crimes could file lawsuits that the statute of limitations would ordinarily forbid, Chatterton reportedly sent a demand letter asking for $11.75 million in damages—and received what the Wall Street Journal reported to be a multi-million dollar payment to settle out of court.

This was just one of the claims made against McMahon over the years, though in most cases details didn’t come out for years because McMahon paid hush money to accusers—as he did in 1992, when he settled with one of several young men who said they’d been sexually molested by WWF highers-up as teens. In 2005, a female WWE wrestler claimed, McMahon “coerced her into giving him oral sex and then demoted her and, ultimately, declined to renew her contract in 2005 after she resisted further sexual encounters,” according to the Journal, which reported that she received a $7.5 million settlement in 2018. In 2006, a worker at a tanning salon in Boca Raton, Florida told police that he showed her nude photos of himself and groped her; no charges were brought, though police did believe there was “probable cause” to do so. A spa manager at a luxury resort in California, the Journal reported two years ago, said that in 2011 McMahon sexually assaulted her. 

Not only was much of this well-known, poor and degrading treatment of women was a central element of McMahon’s public image. The flamboyant “Mr. McMahon” character he played on his wrestling shows did things like make a female performer get on all fours and bark like a dog—something that, intended or not, allowed defenders to accuse those who brought up the Chatterton and tanning-salon allegations of conflating his real-life and stage personae.

For these reasons, while the details of a civil lawsuit filed against McMahon in federal court this week are shocking, they are not surprising. The suit accuses McMahon broadly of sex trafficking and assault and specifically of grooming a vulnerable woman named Janel Grant, hiring her into a fake job at WWE in 2019, and doing things like defecating on her head during a threesome and then ordering her to continue pleasuring an associate, ultimately having her sign a non-disclosure agreement in 2022. (A McMahon spokesperson has said the suit is “replete with lies.”) An understandable focus on claims about McMahon’s depravity, though, can obscure an important question: Exactly who is alleged to have been aware of his conduct, and when?

One person named in the suit is McMahon’s co-defendant, John Laurinaitis, a former wrestler and longtime WWE executive; McMahon is accused of trafficking Grant to him, and he is accused of sexually assaulting her. Another person who is all but named is Brock Lesnar, for whom McMahon is accused of strong-arming Grant into making “personalized sexual content.” (References in the suit to a WWE star and former UFC champion whose contract was being negotiated in 2021 can only be to him, and the Journal named him as the wrestler in question.) Vaguer references are made to “members of the television production ‘tech’ team, executive(s), [and] producers(s),” as well as to a longtime WWE employee, a referee, four corporate officers, and people who attended meetings of the WWE executive committee. 

Some of these people are not directly tied to the claims against McMahon. The suit says, for instance, that McMahon told Grant he showed nude pictures of her to members of the production team and the referee, but it’s possible, as the suit allows, that he didn’t actually do this, and only told her he did for his own gratification. High-up corporate officers, though, are alleged in the lawsuit to have had specific and detailed knowledge of McMahon’s sexually exploitative relationship with Grant, and to have helped facilitate it, serving as fixers in various ways.

A person referred to as “WWE Corporate Officer No. 1” in the suit is said to have been a high-ranking employee and board member. After McMahon broke off relations with Grant, the suit says, he told her that this person would help her find another job and that if she needed anything, she should contact this person. At one point, the suit says, Grant introduced herself to this person, who said they knew exactly who she was although they would have had no reason to know who a low-ranking worker was.

A person referred to as “WWE Corporate Officer No. 2” in the suit is said to have been a high-ranking employee who initially interviewed Grant, who had never held a job before McMahon arranged one for her, and to have told McMahon that there were rumors about his relationship with Grant. McMahon also, the suit says, told Grant that this person had helped draft a to-do for her ahead of her signing an NDA.

McMahon privately met with these two people at some point, the suit asserts, and “advised these individuals of McMahon’s connection to Ms. Grant.”

A person referred to as “WWE Corporate Officer No. 3” in the suit is said to have been a board member. ”Upon information and belief,” the suit reads, “WWE Corporate Officer No. 3 knew of other instances of McMahon engaging in inappropriate sexual conduct.”

A person referred to as “WWE Corporate Officer No. 4” in the suit is said to have been a high-ranking employee working in legal affairs. According to the suit, there is reason to believe that they were aware of the relationship between McMahon and Grant, and that they were “actively hostile” to Grant because they knew she only had a job in their department because of that relationship. The suit further asserts that this person was an example of employees who ”were forced to resign or were let go if they knew of McMahon’s exploits and failed to assist, support and/or facilitate them.”

McMahon’s personal assistants are also said in the suit to have been aware of the relationship, and so are people who were at WWE executive committee meetings, “which were attended by individuals who had either direct knowledge of McMahon’s sexual exploitation of Ms. Grant or were otherwise suspicious.”  At one of these meetings, the suit says, WWE Corporate Officer No. 3 “motioned for Ms. Grant to sit in a chair near [them] at the Boardroom Table.”

TKO Group, the conglomerate of which WWE is a division, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on who would have been in such meetings, and the suit does not give dates for these meetings, but according to a 2020 SEC filing, the executive committee comprised McMahon, his daughter Stephanie McMahon, and his son-in-law Paul Levesque, while a 2021 one adds WWE president Nick Khan.

What the suit alleges, in other words, is not simply that McMahon and another executive exploited and assaulted a vulnerable employee with no family or work history, leaving her entirely dependent on McMahon, but that a broad stratum of the company’s upper management, possibly including family members, either turned a blind eye to this or actively aided it, making them complicit. This is why WWE itself has been sued—it is specifically accused of participating in McMahon’s trafficking venture in violation of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act—and why in a statement to the press, Grant’s lawyer, Ann Callis, described it as an “organization that facilitated or turned a blind eye to the abuse and then swept it under the rug.”

(In a statement to Variety about the lawsuit, TKO said, “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.” Callis has not responded to repeated questions about whether Grant has filed or plans to file criminal charges against McMahon or  Laurinaitis. Police in Stamford, Connecticut, where sexual assaults described in the suit would have taken place, said they have no records of reports naming either man.)

The claim about sweeping all of this under the rug is all the more pointed given a final assertion in the suit. 

In June 2022, the Journal reported that the WWE board had hired a law firm to conduct an independent investigation into an anonymous tipster’s claims that an employee—this was Grant, though she was not named—had received a $100,000 raise after commencing a sexual relationship with McMahon and being given “like a toy” to Laurinaitis. That same month, WWE announced that a special committee of the company’s board would investigate allegations of misconduct against McMahon, who resigned the next month. That review concluded in November 2022. According to the suit, the committee “never even bothered to interview Ms. Grant or request any documents despite Ms. Grant stating that she would cooperate.”

Whatever the committee found, in December 2022, McMahon sought to return as head of WWE—a move unanimously opposed by the members of the board, including his own daughter and son-in-law. The next month, he used his power as controlling shareholder to remove three board members and install himself and two allies on the board. Subsequently, his daughter Stephanie, who had been serving as interim CEO, resigned. McMahon then began the process of selling the company, ultimately engineering a merger with the UFC under the auspices of famed dealmaker Ari Emanuel’s Endeavor. With news about hush money payments and allegations of coercion out there, and with a track record decades long of being accused of sexual predation, McMahon assumed a role as chair of the new company, TKO, which listed both the special committee investigation and McMahon’s presence on the board as risk factors that “could have adverse financial and operational impacts on our business” in an SEC filing in the third quarter of last year. 

Two days before Grant filed her suit, McMahon rang the opening bell on the New York Stock Exchange alongside Emanuel, Khan, Levesque—who now runs WWE’s wrestling side, which is now more popular than it has been in decades—and others, including newly-named TKO board member Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

It remains unclear exactly who knew exactly what and exactly when; it seems likely that will not always be the case. What, if any, consequences McMahon, his executives, or the company will face remain to be seen.  WWE broadcast partners Netflix, Fox, USA, and the CW have not responded to requests for comment about the lawsuit and whether they intend to continue doing business with WWE.