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UPDATED with reactions. Janel Grant, the former WWE employee who filed an explosive lawsuit against the wrestling circuit’s former head, Vince McMahon, said Friday’s news of a settlement between McMahon and the SEC confirms he covered up “horrifying behavior.”
Last year, Grant sued McMahon, the WWE and former exec John Laurinaitis, alleging sexual assault and trafficking. McMahon has denied the allegations. A judge last spring put the suit on hold pending the outcome of a federal investigation.
The WWE, once a stand-alone company, merged in 2023 with the UFC to create TKO Group Holdings, which is controlled by Endeavor and run by Ari Emanuel.
In a statement provided to Deadline by her attorney, Grant said the SEC agreement, in which McMahon did not admit or deny the agency’s findings but agreed to pay $1.7 million to resolve the charges, proves that he “repeatedly broke the law to cover up his horrifying behavior.” A non-disclosure agreement Grant signed “violates the law,” the statement continued. “Therefore, her case must be heard in court.”
In his own statement to Deadline through a spokesperson, McMahon said the SEC settlement “ends nearly three years of investigation by different governmental agencies” accompanied by “a great deal of speculation about what exactly the government was investigating and what the outcome would be. As today’s resolution shows, much of that speculation was misguided and misleading. In the end, there was never anything more to this than minor accounting errors with regard to some personal payments that I made several years ago while I was CEO of WWE.”
McMahon resigned as TKO’s executive chairman last January, days after appearing alongside Emanuel, Dwayne Johnson and McMahon at an opening bell-ringing ceremony at the New York Stock Exchange. Once the largest shareholder in WWE, McMahon has steadily sold off his holdings over the past year, according to a series of public filings.
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Vince McMahon, who left his longtime perch at WWE under a cloud last year, is paying more than $1.7 million to settle charges from the SEC alleging he failed to disclose hush money payments to two women.
The SEC said the matter related to settlement agreements signed by McMahon in 2019 and 2022 on behalf of himself and WWE without disclosing the agreements to WWE’s board or top legal and financial execs. The lack of disclosure created “material misstatements” in WWE financial reports, the SEC said in a press release.
The settlement agreements signed by McMahon were designed to keep women from going public with sexual assault allegations or filing any legal complaints. One settlement agreement obligated McMahon to pay a former employee $3 million in exchange for the former employee’s agreement to not disclose her relationship with McMahon and her release of potential claims against WWE and McMahon. The second agreement obligated McMahon to pay a former WWE independent contractor $7.5 million.
“Without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings,” as the press release put it, McMahon agreed to pay a $400,000 civil penalty for violating the Securities Exchange Act, and also to reimburse WWE $1,330,915.90.
WWE, which McMahon built into a multi-billion-dollar media operation, merged with UFC in 2023, creating TKO Group Holdings. Endeavor has a controlling stake in TKO. McMahon, who remains under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice related to his conduct as WWE’s CEO, stepped down from TKO’s board in the wake of a disturbing lawsuit filed by a former employee accusing him of sexual abuse, assault and trafficking.
“Company executives cannot enter into material agreements on behalf of the company they serve and withhold that information from the company’s control functions and auditor,” said Thomas P. Smith Jr., Associate Regional Director in the New York Regional Office.
