The woman who is suing WWE and its former head, Vince McMahon, accusing him of graphic sexual abuse and trafficking, has requested that all former and current employees be released from any non-disclosure agreements they may have signed while working with the wrestling entertainment company.
Attorney Ann Callis made the demand on behalf of her client, Janel Grant, in a letter sent late Monday to attorneys for WWE President Nick Khan, WWE Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque, and Ari Emanuel, the CEO of Endeavor, which is WWE’s parent company. It comes nearly six months after Grant, who was a WWE employee for three years, filed her lawsuit, which prompted McMahon to resign as executive chairman of the board of directors TKO Group Holdings.
By then, he’d already stepped down as the company’s CEO, a move made amid a 2022 investigation into claims that match those in Grant’s lawsuit.
“If WWE and its parent company Endeavor are serious about parting ways with Vince McMahon and the toxic workplace culture he created, their executives should have no problem with releasing former WWE employees from their NDAs,” Callis said, adding that it could clear the way for additional victims to come forward.
“WWE cannot move on from its sordid past while its victims remain silenced. Survivors deserve an opportunity to share their experiences on their terms,” she continued. “Forced silence only deepens the wounds of sexual abuse. Survivors are revictimized every time they are muzzled and forced to live in fear of attack from a multi-billion-dollar business that can hire an army of lawyers to bury them in legal fees if they speak the truth.”
McMahon, who lived in Grant’s building at the time, initially offered her a job in 2019 — but his proposal did not come without a set of seemingly implied conditions, according to the lawsuit.
While Grant believed she was building a professional relationship with the wrestling honcho, he soon made it clear she’d be required to engage in a physical relationship with him and others, including the show’s talent and its former head of talent relations John Laurinaitis, who is also named in the suit. He previously wrestled under the name “Johnny Ace.”
Grant goes on to detail graphic abuse she allegedly faced during her years at WWE.
In May 2020, 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,” the complaint said.
In another incident at WWE headquarters, Grant said both McMahon and Laurinaitis forced her behind a locked door and sexually assaulted her.
In the end, Grant claimed she was pressured to leave her job with the WWE and into signing a $3 million nondisclosure agreement, of which she only received $1 million.
McMahon has since denied Grant’s accusations, saying the suit is “replete with lies, obscene made-up instances that never occurred, and a vindictive distortion of the truth.”
“He will vigorously defend himself,” the spokesperson added.