The sex trafficking lawsuit against Vince McMahon continues to unfold. This past January, former WWE employee Janel Grant filed a lawsuit against McMahon, former WWE Head of Talent Relations John Laurinaitis, and WWE as a whole that accused McMahon of sexually abusing her and sexually trafficking her to other WWE employees over the course of several years. Grant’s lawsuit put the final nail in McMahon’s WWE career, as other sexual misconduct allegations had been slowly severing him from the company for two years leading up to his complete resignation. This past May, the Department of Justice launched an investigation into the allegations made against McMahon.
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Janel Grant Requests WWE Waive NDAs in Vince McMahon Case
The latest in Janel Grant’s sex trafficking lawsuit against Vince McMahon.
As shared in a statement to the Associated Press, Grant’s legal team is pushing for WWE to waive non-disclosure agreements that former WWE employees are under in relation to McMahon.
“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,” Grant’s attorney Ann Callis, Grant’s attorney said in a statement. “This is the first step to rehabilitating a company that covered up decades of sexual assault and human trafficking.”
Curtis Vogel, a spokesperson for McMahon, declined to comment.
While Grant’s lawsuit specifically began in January, McMahon has been facing sexual misconduct allegations since Spring 2022. Reports emerged that McMahon had been using company funds as hush money payments to various affairs over the years. In July 2022, it was reported that four women had signed NDAs with McMahon.
Grant’s lawsuit against McMahon has been relatively quiet over the summer. As the Department of Justice has been executing its investigation, the three defendants (McMahon, John Laurinaitis, WWE) have made efforts to have this lawsuit removed from federal court and migrated to a private arbitration.
“Mr. Laurinaitis corroborates Mr. McMahon in publicly declaring that Ms. Grant’s allegations of sexual abuse and coercion in her Complaint are completely unfounded. My client will fight these false allegations together with Mr. McMahon in the proper forum, arbitration,” Laurinaitis’s May filing statement reads, pivoting away from his stance two months prior when his lawyer labeled him as a “victim” of McMahon’s “power [and] control.”
Aspects of this lawsuit were covered in Netflix’s Mr. McMahon docuseries, a six-episode saga that chronicled the life and career of WWE’s former head honcho. The docuseries was originally intended to solely analyze the differences of Vince McMahon the person and Mr. McMahon the on-screen WWE persona, but the 2022 and 2024 sexual misconduct allegations against him added a new layer to the character study. Grant’s team responded to the docuseries by saying it “only scratches the surface of his criminal behavior.”
Stay tuned to ComicBook for updates on Grant’s lawsuit against McMahon.
