By LawInspectsJanel Grant Lawsuit involves the World Wrestling Entertainment or WWE, former CEO of WWE, Vince McMahon, another WWE executive John Laurinaitis, and a former employee of WWE, Janel Grant. The lawsuit concerns allegations of sexual assault, physical and emotional abuse, and trafficking against WWE and its executives.
Janel Grant created headlines when she filed a lawsuit against WWE and its high-profile officials, especially the former Chairman of WWE, Vince McMahon. Grant who worked for three years at WWE, accused McMahon of engaging in sexual relationship with her in exchange for employment, trafficking her within the WWE fraternity and abusing her both physically and emotionally. Following the lifting of a temporary stay on the lawsuit which had been put in place to allow federal investigation, Grant amended her lawsuit in January 2025 to add new elements to it, including naming star wrestler, Brock Lesner.
Content of the Lawsuit
Janel Grant filed her lawsuit in January 2024 in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut. In the lawsuit, she named World Wrestling Entertainment Inc., World Wrestling Entertainment, LLC, Vincent K. McMahon and John Laurinaitis.
As per the lawsuit, WWE Founder and Executive Chairman Vincent K. McMahon coerced the plaintiff Janel Grant into a sexual relationship, in exchange for employment in WWE. After being forced into a physical relationship with McMahon, Grant started working in WWE from June 17, 2019, in the company’s legal department as administrator coordinator, a post specifically created for her by McMahon. When Grant attempted to end the sexual relationship, McMahon made it clear that her employment was predicated on her physical relationship with him.
The lawsuit also alleged that McMahon forced Grant to have sexual encounters with defendant John Laurinaitis and others at WWE headquarters at the start of each workday. In March 2020, McMahon started sharing sexually explicit photos and videos of Grant with other men inside and outside WWE. Furthermore, in June 2021, McMahon and Laurinaitis sexually assaulted Grant inside Laurinaitis’ office at the WWE headquarters.
According to the lawsuit, in January 2022, McMahon pushed Janel Grant out of WWE, and forced her to sign a non-disclosure agreement or NDA to prevent her from speaking out against his personal misconduct, among other things. However, even after sacking Grant, McMahon trier to exploit her, including trying to traffic her to a WWE star in March 2022. In addition, the promised payments under the NDA were not made to Grant.
The lawsuit seeks to charge the defendants for their reprehensible and unlawful acts which left Janel Grant physically and mentally crippled, including symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. In addition, the lawsuit seeks a declaratory judgement invalidating the NDA signed by Grant under Trafficking Victims Protection Act and other Federal and State laws.
Chain of Events
On May 30, 2024, Janel Grant agreed to stay her lawsuit for 6 months, in response to a request by the Department of Justice. The DOJ requested a stay because it had begun its own federal investigations into the allegations against McMahon. The stay was approved by a judge in June 2024.
In January 2025, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York informed Grant that the stay on her lawsuit had expired. Subsequently, Janel Grant filed an amended lawsuit in the federal district court of Connecticut in the month of January 2024 itself. In the amended lawsuit, among other evidences against McMahon, Grant named star wrestler Brock Lesner as the person to whom she was offered for sex in the year 2021. Granted alleged that she was forced by McMahon to create personalized sexual content for Lesner, as a part of attempts to keep Lesner under contract with WWE. She further accused McMahon of flying Lesner to Connecticut for a sexual encounter with her in the year 2021, which didn’t happen eventually. The amended lawsuit also included accusations against McMahon that he forced Grant to create customized pornographic content for producer Michael Hayes.
WWE, Vince McMahon and other defendants moved to block the amended lawsuit. Attorneys representing WWE and McMahon claimed that the amended complaint was an attempt made in bad faith to attract publicity. They said the new allegations did not have legal merit to overhaul the original lawsuit.
Latest Updates
In March 2025, Janel Grant’s legal team asked the court to move the lawsuit to discovery process. The defendants opposed the move, and argued in favor of private arbitration. Judge Sarah F. Russell is yet to make a decision regarding whether or not to accept the amended lawsuit, and whether or not discovery process should begin before a decision is made regarding the defendants’ motion for arbitration.