Overview

Vince McMahon Sexual Misconduct Allegations refers to the lawsuit filed by Janel Grant (a former employee) in late January 2024 revolving around co-founder and former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) Vince McMahon. The accusations were that McMahon had allegedly offered promotions, direct payment and other benefits for sexual favors with Grant and even had her meet with other people for the same. WWE executive John Laurinaitis was also named in the allegations of sex trafficking and sexual assault in the early 2020s. Due to the allegations, Vince McMahon stepped down entirely from TKO and WWE. The controversy was widely covered in the media and garnered significant discourse and memes online.

Background

On January 25th, 2024, it was made public that a lawsuit from Janel Grant, a former employee at the WWE global headquarters between 2019 and 2022, alleged that Vince McMahon had offered her promotions at work and other benefits in exchange for sex, as well as alleging outright assault had taken place.^[6][8] This was not the first time that McMahon had been fingered in allegations, as former employees have spoken out about Vince in the past.^[5]

On March 14th, 2023, TikToker metamatttv^[1] uploaded a TikTok in which he went over a previous incident with McMahon and briefly mentioned the situation between McMahon and a paralegal, which was later confirmed to be Janel Grant (shown below).

On the day of the lawsuit documents being public in late January 2024, wrestling fans were quick to dig into them and see what was alleged, with many different reactions being uploaded across social media. On January 25th, TikToker WrestlingObserverOnline^[2] uploaded a snippet of a conversation in which the document and its 67 pages are talked about, including allegations that involve a fellow employee at the time, John Laurinaitis (shown below).

Vince McMahon's Resignation

On January 26th, 2024, Vince McMahon then resigned from TKO/WWE after the allegations garnered considerable news coverage and backlash online.^[7] In a statement about the accusations that day, McMahon said the decision was made "out of respect for the WWE Universe, TKO, shareholders and business partners." He also called the claims "baseless" and said, "I stand by my prior statement that Ms. Grant's lawsuit is replete with lies, obscene made-up instances that never occurred and is a vindictive distortion of the truth."

Online Reactions

Due to this not being his first, second or third time having allegations levied against him and the investigation being known about since 2023, many wrestling fans were quick to decry Vince McMahon and believe the allegations at face value. One of the parts from the accusations to go viral, that McMahon had defecated on Grant's head during a threesome, was quickly spread online with numerous memes made about it. For example, on January 26th, 2024, Redditor u/KodenATL^[3] uploaded a Vince McMahon Reaction meme about the incident, earning over 10,000 upvotes in 12 hours (shown below).

The text messages from McMahon garnered particular attention online, with a collage of them being reposted and spread across numerous platforms over the following days. For example, on January 25th, the texts were posted to Reddit's /r/JoeRogan^[9] sub under the title "The insane mind of Vince McMahon," receiving over 4,800 upvotes and 1,500 comments in four days. His misspelling of "pussy" as "pussey" also generated discussions and mocking,^[10] such as Twitter / X user @shortmagsmle's reaction GIF on the 25th that earned over 80 likes in four days (seen below).

Vince McMahon realizing he’s misspelled the word “pussey” each one of the 765,736 times he texted it to a female employee https://t.co/FUsIepm6WR pic.twitter.com/fdQtFVwmRq

— Lee (Greater) (@shortmagsmle) January 26, 2024

On January 26th, 2024, it was announced that Vince McMahon had tendered his resignation and pulled back completely from TKO (the parent company of WWE) and WWE, which caused many fans to rejoice. During his long tenure as the dominant leading force behind WWE, McMahon had made a lot of enemies of fans for various reasons, which led fans to celebrate his resignation with vigor.

For example, on January 26th, X user @abbipaperbag^[4] uploaded the clip of John Cena announcing to a crowd the death of Osama Bin Laden, comparing the two events as equal in their significance (shown below).

Search Interest

External References