[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
Longtime WWE chairman and CEO Vince McMahon is being accused of sexually abusing and sex trafficking a former company staffer as part of a shocking new lawsuit filed on Thursday.
According to reporting first by the Wall Street Journal, ex-WWE staff member Janel Grant just filed a lawsuit accusing the 78-year-old pro wrestling executive of some truly heinous acts.
Per that outlet’s reporting, Grant signed a non-disclosure agreement back in 2022 under which she agreed not to go to public about her relationship with McMahon. She came away with $3 million as per the terms of that agreement. However, in this new lawsuit filed on Thursday, Grant claims McMahon’s agreed-upon payments to her completely stopped after an initial $1 million payout. He didn’t pay his end, so she’s moving to void the NDA and has sued for unspecified damages.
Related: ‘RHOP’ Star Mia Thornton Painfully Reveals She’s A Victim Of Sexual Assault
In addition to that internal fight, this lawsuit has opened up disturbing new details the NDA had been intended to keep private. Among those is an allegation McMahon asked Grant to “create personalized sexual content for a WWE superstar that he was trying to re-sign.” The suit doesn’t outright name the professional wrestler involved, but the WSJ reports info from sources who claim it’s longtime wrestling superstar Brock Lesnar (above, inset).
Whoa…
The suit claims issues first arose back in 2019 when McMahon and John Laurinaitis — the former WWE head of talent relations who is also named as a defendant in this new legal maneuver — allegedly pressured Grant into sexual situations in exchange for a job as an administrator-coordinator in WWE’s legal department. Those disturbing sexual situations allegedly included a June 2021 incident in which McMahon and another executive locked Grant in her office and took turns sexually assaulting her. Then, days later, McMahon allegedly locked her in his “private locker room” and “forced himself on her,” per the suit.
The abuse didn’t stop there. Soon, McMahon allegedly began sending explicit texts to Grant — and to other people within the WWE about Grant. The former staffer provided a series of screenshots of the purported messages as part of her lawsuit. In one disturbing message, McMahon wrote:
“i’m the only one who owns U and controls who I want to f**k U.”
McMahon also reportedly sent explicit photos of Grant to other people within the WWE. And when those other staffers reportedly said they were also interested in having sex with the woman, McMahon reportedly texted back:
“She may scream and try to say NO!! although it would B difficult to say anything with a c**k down her throat.”
WTF?!?!
Absolutely despicable. Regarding the unnamed pro wrestler who the WSJ reports as being Lesnar, McMahon also allegedly texted Grant that having sex with her was supposed to be part of the deal when his new contract was signed:
“that part of the deal was f**king U.”
McMahon even went so far as to reportedly give Grant’s phone number to Lesnar, who is married to ex-WWE star Sable. Per the WSJ report, Lesnar supposedly asked Grant to send him a video of herself urinating. Lesnar also allegedly asked Grant to “set a play date” with him in December 2021, according to the lawsuit, before a major snowstorm canceled the planned meeting.
Grant’s initial nondisclosure agreement then began to percolate at the beginning of 2022. In January of that year, McMahon started pressuring her to sign an NDA after his wife Linda McMahon reportedly became aware of their relationship. As we have previously reported, McMahon retired from his executive position within the WWE in July of 2022 after reports came out that he paid multiple women $14.6 million combined to stay quiet about alleged sexual encounters with him and other claims of sexual misconduct.
McMahon has since returned to the WWE. In January of 2023, he worked to finalize a deal in which the wrestling outfit was sold to Endeavor Group Holdings, a firm that also owns the UFC. The UFC and WWE have since merged into yet another company called TKO Group Holdings, of which McMahon is the executive chairman.
Thursday’s lawsuit comes not even 48 hours after McMahon appeared at the New York Stock Exchange to celebrate another massive new business deal. On Tuesday, he announced that WWE had reached a 10-year, $5 billion deal with Netflix to air Raw on the streaming service beginning in 2025.
FWIW, neither McMahon, Laurinaitis, nor Lesnar have yet made any public comment on Thursday’s lawsuit or the allegations within, per Bleacher Report.
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual violence and would like to learn more about resources, consider checking out https://www.rainn.org/resources.
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