The lawyer who represents a former WWE employee who claims she was sexually abused and trafficked by Vince McMahon said the “depravity” her client endured over the years is “in its own class.”
Ann Callis, an attorney for ex-WWE staffer Janel Grant, said she previously worked for nine years as a criminal felony judge overseeing murder and sexual assault cases, but the horrors that her client suffered at McMahon’s hands are incomparable to anything she’s encountered in her career.
“The sexual slavery she endured, the devastating consequences that happened to her physically and mentally when she was going through this and still is suffering through this with PTSD — she had suicidal ideation,” Callis told NewsNation’s Ashleigh Banfield.
“This is in its own class of the depravity that she had to endure.”
Grant, who worked in the company’s legal and talent departments, alleged that McMahon forced her to have sex with WWE icons and executives, defecated on her during a threesome and aggressively used sex toys on her that he named after wrestling stars, which caused her injuries, according to the bombshell suit filed Thursday in Connecticut federal court.
In addition to McMahon, Grant, 43, also named John Laurinaitis, the company’s former head of talent relations and general manager, in the 67-page suit, alleging the pair took turns holding her down for each other while sexually assaulting her at WWE offices in June 2021.
The explosive court filing followed the Wall Street Journal reporting last year that WWE was probing an alleged $3 million payment McMahon gave to a female employee who left after a consensual affair.
Grant, who was not named in the report, claims in the suit she received a $1 million installment after signing an NDA, but no further payments.
A subsequent investigation found that McMahon shelled out $14.6 million to various women who had accused him of sexual misconduct.
McMahon has denied the allegations in the suit, but announced Friday that he was stepping down as executive chairman of WWE’s parent company, TKO Group Holdings.
TKO Group, which was created in September when UFC and WWE merged, has said it is taking the allegations seriously and addressing them internally.
