As of January 25th, Vince McMahon is embroiled in widespread debate and controversy, facing serious allegations related to trafficking. Among the accusations leveled against him are claims of engaging in grooming behavior with female WWE stars backstage.
A former WWE staff member named Janel Grant initiated legal proceedings against WWE, John Laurinaitis, and Vince McMahon, alleging incidents of sexual assault, emotional abuse, and sex trafficking. The allegations span from their first encounter in March 2019 to March 2022.
Following the sexual trafficking lawsuit, Vince McMahon officially resigned from WWE and TKO Holdings. Former WWE manager Dutch Mantell discussed McMahon’s backstage interactions with women on Smack Talk, revealing that the behavior was widely known within the WWE.
“It’s sad, but everybody knew it,” Mantell remarked. He claimed that the information was common knowledge during his time in WWE, with female talent confiding in him about McMahon’s actions. The former manager mentioned Rita Chatterton as an initial instance and accused McMahon of grooming female WWE talent.
According to Mantell, McMahon would have private conversations with women backstage, a practice not exclusive to female talent. He described McMahon’s actions as a form of grooming, preparing women for potential situations, and claimed that some of them left McMahon’s office in tears due to the distress caused by these encounters.
“The only sad thing about it is that everybody knew it,” Mantell said. “Everybody. It was common knowledge when I was in WWE what was going on. The girls told me what was going on. It started, of course, with Rita Chatterton, was her name, and that was before it was so well known.”
“He’d pull them in a room and close the door. Of course, he did that with everybody, the guys too (…) He would get them [women] in there and I guess the term is groom them, I guess. He would get them ready for what might be possibly coming their way, and they would leave the room with tears in their eyes. Some of them, not all of them. He would upset them that badly.”
