Vince McMahon resigns from WWE

Vince McMahon, the longtime chairman and former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, resigned from his positions at WWE and its parent company, TKO Group, on Friday, a day after a former employee accused him of sexual assault and trafficking in a federal corporation. court case.

WWE employees were informed of the changes in an email sent by Nick Kahn, the president of WWE. “He will no longer have a role with TKO Group Holdings or WWE,” Mr. Kahn wrote in the email, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Connecticut, accused Mr. McMahon of trafficking the employee, Janel Grant, and physically and emotionally abusing her. The explicit complaint, which also named John Laurinatis, a WWE executive, and the company itself as defendants, says that Mr. McMahon and Mr. Laurinatis once took turns raping her, among numerous other allegations.

Mr. McMahon eventually pressured Ms. Grant to sign a non-disclosure agreement in exchange for $3 million, according to the complaint, but paid her only $1 million.

In a statement released after his resignation, Mr McMahon called Ms Grant's lawsuit a “vindictive distortion of the truth” and said he looked forward to clearing his name. But he decided to resign “out of respect” for TKO, WWE, their employees and wrestlers.

The lawsuit is far from the first time Mr. McMahon has been accused of sexual misconduct. In 2022, a special committee of the WWE board conducted an investigation into Mr. McMahon's conduct and found that for 16 years he $14.6 million in payments issued to women who had accused him of sexual misconduct. Further company investigation revealed that he had made an additional $5 million in payments to two different women.

Mr. McMahon temporarily resigned from WWE during the investigation. But he remained the company's largest shareholder and in 2023 he returned to become chairman of the board and initiate a sale process that led to sports and entertainment conglomerate Endeavor buying it. Endeavor then combined WWE and another of his holdings, the mixed martial arts promotion company Ultimate Fighting Championships, into a new publicly traded company, TKO Group.

This is a breaking story. It will be updated.