A woman who received a payout from WWE boss Vince McMahon has accused McMahon, the company and a former executive of sex trafficking in a new lawsuit that raises questions about the breadth of an internal company probe conducted by a law firm last year.
Janel Grant, a former employee at WWE’s headquarters, said in a lawsuit filed Thursday that she was abused and sexually exploited by McMahon while he was chief executive. She alleged that McMahon lured her with promises of career advancement, and then he allegedly exploited her and trafficked her to other men inside the company.
Grant signed a nondisclosure agreement in 2022 in which McMahon agreed to pay $3 million for her to not discuss their relationship or to disparage him. The WWE received an anonymous tip in 2022 about the relationship and started a board investigation, which uncovered other payments by the CEO to women. Grant’s lawsuit said McMahon stopped making payments under the 2022 deal after the initial $1 million installment. The suit seeks to void the agreement and unspecified financial damages.
McMahon and his attorney, Jerry McDevitt, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday. Representatives for the WWE also didn’t immediately respond.
McDevitt said in 2022 that the woman, whose name wasn’t yet public, hadn’t made any allegations of harassment. In a statement when The Wall Street Journal first reported on McMahon’s $3 million settlement, WWE said that the relationship was consensual and that it was taking seriously the allegations McMahon had engaged in misconduct.
McMahon briefly retired from WWE in July 2022 following reporting by the Journal that revealed payouts to multiple women who had alleged sexual misconduct. The Journal reported that the board’s independent directors had retained law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett to conduct an investigation.
Simpson Thacher’s investigation found $14.6 million in payments by the CEO to women who had accused him of sexual misconduct, out of roughly $20 million that should have been booked as business expenses. In November 2022, WWE said the board investigation was completed and the company restated past securities filings. McMahon repaid the company for the cost of the investigation and returned soon after.
The lawsuit complicates the legal picture around 78-year-old McMahon. Federal prosecutors have been investigating the payouts and in July 2023 agents executed a search warrant for McMahon’s phone and served him with a grand-jury subpoena. No charges have been brought.
“Throughout this experience, I have always denied any intentional wrongdoing and continue to do so,” McMahon said in 2023 about the federal probe. “I am confident that the government’s investigation will be resolved without any findings of wrongdoing.”
The lawsuit, filed in a Connecticut federal court, describes in graphic detail Grant’s account of interactions with the businessman and TV personality. She alleged that McMahon and another WWE executive locked her in an office in WWE’s headquarters in Stamford, Conn., on June 15, 2021, and took turns sexually assaulting her while other staff were working.
In the middle of another workday, on June 23, 2021, McMahon locked Grant inside his private locker room at WWE’s offices and forced himself on her over a massage table, the suit said. Later that day, McMahon’s personal assistant delivered $15,000 in Bloomingdale’s gift cards to Grant in her office.
The suit also includes screenshots of explicit text messages that McMahon allegedly sent to Grant. A May 2020 message said: “i’m the only one who owns U and controls who I want to f- U.”
Grant alleged that McMahon shared nude photos and explicit videos of her without consent with other WWE employees, unnamed executives and stars, and directed her to have sex with them. The suit cited a July 2020 text that said others at WWE wanted to have sex with her after seeing photos on McMahon’s phone, and the group laughed when he told them, “She may scream and try to say NO!!although it would B difficult to say anything with a c- down her throat.”
Grant alleged that the company diverted attention away from McMahon’s abuse by focusing on the accounting for the payouts. Others at WWE knew about McMahon’s misconduct but worked to conceal the wrongdoing, according to the suit.
Simpson Thacher didn’t immediately respond Thursday to requests for comment.
McMahon, who was the controlling shareholder of WWE, returned to WWE in early 2023, elected himself to the board and replaced several directors. Upon his return, he negotiated a sale of WWE to Endeavor Group EDR 0.16%increase; green up pointing triangle, owner of the UFC mixed martial-arts league. The deal gave WWE an enterprise value of $9.3 billion.
McMahon is now executive chairman and a major shareholder of the combined company, called TKO Group TKO 0.69%increase; green up pointing triangle. This week, Netflix bought the rights to “WWE Raw” and other WWE shows in a deal valued at more than $5 billion. McMahon celebrated by ringing the opening bell with other TKO executives at the NYSE.
‘Has to look legit’
McMahon, at a WWE event in April 2022, briefly left the company later that year and returned in early 2023.
Grant’s lawsuit alleged that she met McMahon in March 2019 after an introduction from a manager in her apartment building. McMahon lived in the penthouse of the same building, and Grant was looking for a job after her parents had died.
When they met, McMahon allegedly made promises of a job at WWE and showered Grant with gifts. During meetings that were supposed to be about the job, he greeted her in his underwear and repeatedly asked for hugs. Then, the suit said, he pressured her into sexual activities in return for employment and warned her to stay quiet about their interactions.
Grant began working in June 2019 as an “administrator-coordinator,” a position McMahon created for her in WWE’s legal department. She said she expressed concerns that the job felt unearned, but McMahon told her that all she needed to do was not tell anyone and that “it just has to look legit.” Colleagues complained about overflowing inboxes, but Grant had little work.
Meanwhile, McMahon allegedly sent her sexually explicit messages and his sexual demands increased. He forcefully used sex toys on her, including dildos he named after WWE wrestlers, causing her bruising and bleeding, the suit said. Grant alleged that she complained to McMahon and made attempts to end the relationship.
In March 2020, McMahon began sharing sexually explicit photographs and videos of Grant with other men, including other WWE executives and a former UFC heavyweight champion with whom WWE was actively trying to sign to a new contract, according to the suit. In a May 2020 encounter, McMahon defecated on her head during a threesome, the suit said.
Her mental and physical health deteriorated so badly that McMahon sent her in November to a celebrity doctor for sessions at an alternative clinic where she never received any receipts or bills. McMahon also paid $20,000 to a surgeon on her behalf, the suit said.
McMahon recruited people to have sex with Grant as well, including WWE’s former head of talent relations, John Laurinaitis, who is named as a defendant in the suit. McMahon directed her to visit Laurinaitis at his hotel rooms where she had sex with Laurinaitis prior to the start of workdays, the suit alleged. “I’ve left that hotel feeling bad about myself every time,” Grant told McMahon.
In May 2021, McMahon allegedly told Grant that her presence in the legal department was holding up the hiring of a new general counsel for the company and thus transferred her to the talent-relations department, reporting to Laurinaitis. McMahon and Laurinaitis started her in a lower-level position but promised that she would soon be promoted to vice president, the suit said.
McMahon controlled her professional and personal lives and subjected her to degradation, according to the suit. In the June 2021 encounter inside the WWE office, the suit said McMahon and Laurinaitis forced themselves on her and took turns restraining her for the other, while saying “No means yes” and “Take it, b-.”
Laurinaitis, a former wrestler known as Johnny Ace and a longtime WWE executive, left the company in 2022. Laurinaitis hasn’t publicly commented on his departure.
Laurinaitis didn’t immediately respond Thursday to requests for comment.
In July 2021, the suit said, McMahon instructed Grant to create personalized sexual content for a WWE superstar that he was trying to re-sign. The suit didn’t name the professional wrestler, but described him as both a UFC fighter and WWE talent. People familiar with the matter identified the wrestler as Brock Lesnar, one of WWE’s biggest names.
Lesnar didn’t immediately respond Thursday to requests for comment.
The suit said McMahon shared the explicit photos with the star and informed Grant that “he likes what he sees.” After the star agreed to a new WWE contract, McMahon texted Grant in August 2021 to say “that part of the deal was f-ing U.”
