Former WWE Writers Detail 'Culture Of Fear' Working Under Vince McMahon

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The backstage culture of WWE under Vince McMahon's leadership has come under scrutiny again, as a number of former writers revealed how awful it was in a tell-all interview with Rolling Stone. Six writers, including Michael Leonardi, and five of whom remained anonymous explained how badly they were treated by McMahon and other employees.

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"WWE is a kingdom ruled by fear. It is the motivating factor everywhere: fear," one writer said. "There was a very heavy layer of fear and tension and that was directly from Vince, and that culture that he created obviously created a lot of problems." The writers all agreed that the culture of fear spread throughout the company, from the writers room to the road, all the way to the promotion's headquarters, where they all witnessed varying degrees of verbal abuse.

"Everybody was getting yelled at all the time in the room," one former writer said. "It was more saying s**t that was humiliating or mean couched as a joke, but it's a nasty joke. If you're being targeted in the room, nobody stands up for you, but that's because if they do, they will get the bullet in the head, too. You don't stick your head up out of the foxhole for anybody, because nobody wants to take a bullet." Despite this, some people were loyal to McMahon, which caused more issues for employees.

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Despite some of the accusations lobbied at McMahon in recent years, some current and former WWE stars will describe him as a father figure. Meanwhile, veterans like Mick Foley praised him for giving them an opportunity to be the stars they are today. This mentality has divided people into WWE loyalists and outsiders who were dumbfounded at how the company operated under McMahon.

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"Those [loyalists] were the most miserable people I've ever worked with, but that's where a lot of them had worked their whole professional lives and that's the only game in town," one writer said. "They didn't know what it was like working on a regular television show." 

This reportedly led to some writers being put in positions where they could bully others in order to impress McMahon. One writer, who admitted to not having any real bad memories of working with McMahon personally, believes that they were scared of being fired or upsetting the former WWE chairman if they didn't put on such an act.

An example of what would be said by these people in high positions was something along the lines of, "I wish your dad pulled out and came on your mom's t*ts instead of having you." This was described by one writer as locker room talk, which got more volatile the more they had had to deal with people in McMahon's inner circle.

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Trying to get ahead in WWE by impressing Vince McMahon didn't always lead to promotions and salary raises. In fact, some of these positions that were being jockeyed for ended up having people turn on each other in order to benefit themselves. One former writer even described the writers room culture in WWE as being "mafia style" when it came to its leadership, 

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"If you do one thing, you're p*ssing off three other people who are higher up than you who are going to chew you out, get angry, or seek revenge." All of this led to a very odd, and unsettling experience while being in the writers room. 

"I couldn't understand what the hell was going on because nobody made eye contact, nobody talked to you. It was so odd," another former writer said. "Everybody's scared and the only laughs are at someone else's expense. Everybody is emotionally shut down because of the verbal beating that they take and the humiliation. That's what the room is like with a bad leader."

WWE representatives were contacted for comments on these stories, but there was no response. However, a spokesperson for McMahon responded by saying that the accounts being recalled are far from what actually goes on in a WWE writers meeting. "Scores of writers could share tales of what an enjoyable, creative, and freewheeling environment the WWE writers rooms were. This handful of [obviously disgruntled] individuals aren't representative in any way of the consensus, or of the truth."

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Please credit the original source when using quotes from this article, and thanks to The Rolling Stone for the transcription.