Lawsuit Accuses WWE's Vince McMahon of Sexual Assault, Trafficking

A former WWE employee has accused the company’s co-founder, Vince McMahon, of sexual abuse and human trafficking in a bombshell lawsuit.

Janel Grant named McMahon, WWE, and the promotion’s former head of talent relations, John Laurinaitis, as defendants in the case, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut. The lawsuit claims McMahon and Laurinaitis sexually abused and trafficked Grant before and throughout her career at the WWE, often on company property and using WWE funds.

The lawsuit reads: “After succumbing to pressure for a physical relationship [with McMahon], Ms. Grant was slotted into an entry-level position as an ‘administrator-coordinator’—a position McMahon created for her in WWE’s legal department [in 2019].”

The suit further alleges that McMahon “repeatedly used sex toys named after other WWE employees, wrestlers, and performers to sexually groom Ms. Grant for trafficking to those same people.” It also claims McMahon “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.”

The lawsuit contains harrowing, detailed examples of the alleged “extreme cruelty and degradation” McMahon subjected Grant to. One of the more extreme allegations details an alleged threesome between Grant, McMahon, and one of his friends. The suit claims that McMahon “defecated on Ms. Grant…and then commanded her to continue pleasuring his ‘friend’—with feces in her hair and running down her back.”

The suit also recounts another alleged episode in which both McMahon and Laurinaitis assaulted Grant in their office while WWE staffers sat at their desks outside. The suit claims WWE staffers were aware of the abuse and “actively sought to conceal the wrongdoing.”

“Through all this trauma, Ms. Grant has endured profound suffering in silence, [a] feeling of exploitation, loss of security, and the fear of facing the wrath of WWE and McMahon’s army of attorneys,” the lawsuit reads.

Neither McMahon, Laurinaitis, nor WWE have publically commented on the allegations.

McMahon was suspended from his positions with the WWE and parent company TKO in 2022 after allegations were made that he provided "hush money" payments to other women who had accused him of assault. He returned to the organization in January 2023.