The former WWE employee who accused Vince McMahon of sex trafficking and claimed the 78-year-old billionaire defecated on her head during a threesome admits she ‘hopes any doors of secrecy have been blown off their hinges’ by her lawsuit. Janel Grant, who previously agreed to a $3 million settlement in exchange for signing a nondisclosure agreement in 2022, filed a new lawsuit against McMahon, the WWE, and a former executive this week. In that filing, which was obtained by DailyMail.com, Grant claims McMahon – who denies the allegations – stopped making payments after the initial $1 million installment, and she now seeks to void that agreement.
Furthermore, Grant claims she suffered bruising and bleeding after McMahon forcefully penetrated her with sex toys, which he named after his wrestlers. She also alleges that McMahon and another WWE executive locked her in a room at the WWE’s Stamford, Connecticut headquarters in June of 2021 and took turns sexually assaulting during the work day. The married McMahon is additionally accused of trafficking Grant to other men and sharing nude photographs of the plaintiff. Grant is seeking unspecified damages.
She said in a statement read by her St. Louis-based attorney, Ann Callis, that she ‘hopes any doors of secrecy have been blown off their hinges.’ It added: ‘She hopes those at the company past and present who fear speaking out about harm is a thing of the past. She wishes them all peace.’
McMahon has responded to the claims, via a spokesperson, who says the 78-year-old intends to fight to clear his name. ‘This lawsuit is replete with lies, obscene made-up instances that never occurred, and a vindictive distortion of the truth,’ a spokesman for McMahon said on Thursday. ‘He will vigorously defend himself.’
The WWE previously described McMahon’s sexual relationship with Grant as ‘consensual’ in a 2022 statement.
The lawsuit comes as McMahon is reducing his role within the company. In fact, he briefly left the WWE in 2022 when the initial allegations of his infidelities first surfaced in a Wall Street Journal report. And this week, former wrestler Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson was appointed to the board of directors at TKO, the umbrella company formed by the UFC-WWE merger. Meanwhile, another former wrestler, Triple H (AKA Paul Levesque) has replaced McMahon as the WWE’s chief content officer.
WWE executive and retired wrestler John Laurinaitis are also named as defendants in the suit. Laurinaitis was fired from the WWE in 2022.
Grant began working with the WWE in 2019, joining the company at a difficult time in her life, according to the filing. ‘The two met in March 2019, when Ms. Grant was dealing with profound grief and struggling financially – after devoting years to around-the-clock caregiving, her parents passed away,’ read the filing. ‘On top of that, she was unemployed and her family home was lost in her parents’ bankruptcy. ‘As McMahon dangled career-making and life-changing promises in front of Ms. Grant, he demonstrated an increasing lack of boundaries,’ read the filing. ‘During several meetings that were ostensibly about a potential job at WWE, he greeted her in his underwear, touched her, repeatedly asked for hugs, and spent hours sharing intimate details about his personal life. ‘Despite Ms. Grant’s expressions of unhappiness and attempts to end the sexual relationship — and while she came to understand that McMahon expected the physical relationship to continue as part of her employment — she had no idea how sordid it would become, nor how the psychological torture and physical violence would leave her feeling helpless, isolated and trapped.’
