Janel Grant Calls Out TKO & WWE Amid Legal Battle With Vince McMahon

Janel Grant has spoken publicly for the first time about Vince McMahon, the lawsuit filed against him, and WWE.

A massive lawsuit was filed by former WWE employee Janel Grant in January 2024. In the lawsuit, Grant accused former WWE Chairman Vince McMahon of alleged sexual abuse and sex trafficking, among other disturbing things.

The lawsuit also accused McMahon of setting up a sexual affair between her and then Head of Talent Relations, Lauriniaitis, in addition to claims that McMahon tried to use her as a pawn in contract negotiations with Brock Lesnar. Because of the lawsuit, WWE didn’t use Lesnar on television for two years until bringing him back in the summer of 2025.

In the two-plus years since the lawsuit, Vince McMahon has claimed he would continue to fight it and denied any wrongdoing.

Due to the negative attention brought on by the lawsuit, as well as Vince’s other sexual transgressions going back to the summer of 2022 that led to his first WWE “retirement,” TKO made Vince McMahon sell most of his WWE stock in early 2024, and he has no longer had a role in the company for the past two years.

For the first time, Janel Grant spoke at a Capitol news briefing hosted by the Connecticut Alliance to End Sexual Violence. At the press conference, Grant mentioned that when her identity became known in a Wall Street Journal story in 2022, she said it completely changed her life.

“On June 15th of 2022, my life was rewritten into someone else’s storyline. And I was globally outed in the Wall Street Journal.”

“That is the life-wrecking and the mental health impact of this particular NDA.”

An NDA is a non-disclosure agreement that McMahon made Grant sign, and led to McMahon paying her an agreed-upon amount of money.

In 2022, Grant signed a non-disclosure agreement, which saw Vince McMahon agree to pay her $3 million to stop her from discussing their relationship or disparaging him. However, WWE received an anonymous tip about the relationship and this led to the Board’s investigation into McMahon that uncovered payments to other women and McMahon’s short-lived retirement in 2022.

Grant spoke about the support she has received.

“The people and organizations that have supported me when I was the loneliest person on planet Earth, when my life got decimated in the Wall Street Journal, with them, I would not be here.”

As she continued, Grant remarked that NDA’s allow harmful behavior to continue.

“Workplace safety depends on transparency because when employees cannot speak, patterns can’t be seen. When patterns can’t be seen, they can’t be stopped. When they can’t be stopped, harm spreads.”

“When an NDA is used to conceal dangerous behavior, it simply relocates the harm to the next employee, the next office, the next victim.”

Janel Grant Refused WWE Wanting Her To Issue Joint Statement With Vince McMahon

The comments from Grant continued as she claimed that WWE wanted her to release a statement that her relationship with McMahon was consensual, but she refused.

“So someone, a group maybe, behind my back, without my knowledge, without my input, made that decision for me, it’s consensual, we say so.”

That led to Grant revealing what happened when the news of WWE selling to Endeavor, which became TKO, was officially announced.

“In March of 2023, I got two things from the SEC. I got a subpoena, and I got whistleblower status.

A couple days after that, Vince McMahon and Ari Emanuel suddenly appeared on CNBC to announce a deal of Endeavor and WWE, so color me the most surprised person on planet Earth.”

Grant also stated, near the end of her speech, that WWE owners TKO now know more about the origin story involving Grant and McMahon. Grant also stated during her speech that she didn’t want to file the civil suit because of how it would impact her life.

“I knew what I would be about to throw my life into… I didn’t start that. It’s like it found me.”

“To the board of TKO, if you didn’t know this part of your origin story, now you know.”

“All of you have some say in how my life turns out from here, including how quickly I may be able to move on and find help and healing.” (H/T Ringsidenews)

The video of Grant’s press conference is below, with her comments beginning around the 10:30 mark.