Janel Grant Says WWE Requested She Make Joint Statement Saying Relationship With Vince McMahon Was Consensual

Jeremy LambertFebruary 20, 2026, 2:03 pm

TRIGGER WARNING – SEXUAL ASSAULT, SUICIDE

Janel Grant, a former WWE employee, filed a lawsuit in January 2024 against Vince McMahon, WWE, and John Laurinaitis. The lawsuit accuses McMahon of sexual assault and sex trafficking. McMahon resigned from TKO/WWE following the lawsuit being filed. Laurinaitis has since been dropped from the lawsuit.

On Thursday, Grant spoke at the Connecticut Alliance to End Sexual Violence.

“I really shouldn’t be here. By a series of miracles that I can’t account for, I’m alive today. On June 15 2022, my life was rewritten into someone else’s storyline, and I was globally outed by the Wall Street Journal.

She said that she got a call that wasn’t expecting while she was at her new job in front of her new bosses and a high rise of residents.

“At any minute, the Wall Street Journal would be publishing a story about me, Vince McMahon, and a non-disclosure agreement. I was told if anybody asks me about this, I can’t make a comment, I can’t acknowldge it, I can’t say I’m not okay, and if anybody approached me, I can’t acknowledge years of life to anybody who saw me live it.”

She said she blacked out and ended up in a closet with a belt and stool under a metal rod. She thanked God somebody saw her and stopped it.

“Workplace safety depends on transparency. When employees cannot speak, patterns can’t be seen. When patterns can’t be seen, they can’t be stopped. When they can’t be stopped, harm spreads. When an NDA is used to conceal dangerous behavior, it simply relocates the harm to the next employee, the next office, the next victim. No one should be required to trade silence for accountability and no workplace should be safer for the institution than the people inside.”

She said she has watched her life play out from a window and she only went outside ten times due to the level of threat.

Grant spoke about coercive control, which is continuous patterns of behaviour that are intended to exert power or control over a survivor.

She mentioned the NDA and that there are a lot of people living and working in fear in Connecticut. She said let her story be a cautionary tale of what you don’t want in an NDA.

“There are five intersections associated with the NDA; a federal criminal investigation by the DOJ, an SEC investigation, a shareholder suit, a second circuit decision, and my civil suit. The NDA was a tool that Vince could use to justify anything while I remained a victim of exploitation, and in a position for anyone to exploit me.”

She said, “The company reached out and requested that I make a joint statement that this was a consensual relationship and that they wanted to know this to the extent that I needed or wanted something, aka more money on the table. I refused.”

She said that a company spokesperson said the relationship was consensual, which was a surprise to her. “Leaving out one half of an experiencing party on a decision like that is not consent.”

She said the company announced investigation and she was given permission to participate, which was not considered a breach. “That summer, I spent six figures to participate in their investigation on legal retainers and medical care that saved my life. I preserved my evidence, and I believed I would be interviewed for this investigation and would get my life back. Then, the feds reached out ahead of speaking with me. I was onboarding a new legal team. We gave them my evidence and said to review it in advance. Based on that objective review of hard evidence, communication with people across the company including leadership then and now, that this was now a covert investigation into human trafficking and the criminal misconduct of WWE, Vince McMahon, and this NDA.”

She said the feds requested she say nothing and this would be covert while they investigated.

“There are people living and working in fear in Connecticut and there is a headquarters in Stamford full of intimidated people that I care about.”

She said no one has answers as to her breaching the NDA. She said in March 2023, she got a subpoena and whistleblower status from the SEC. Days later, Ari Emanuel and Vince McMahon announced the WWE-Endeavor deal.

She said more letters, warrants, and subpoenas were served and delivered with her name in them.

“In September 2023, the company paid for my participation in the investigation. I was out six figures. If anyone postures like this isn’t serious, they spent serious money on it.”

She said she filed her federal civil lawsuit at the last second because she didn’t want to do it as she knew what it would turn her life into.

She mentioned the alleged love letter that was found on a corporate laptop and published by the New York Post, saying the article re-wrote her life. “This was a public humiliation and intimidation.”

She said in the summer of 2024, viewers noted there were parallels between a WWE storyline that unfolded for several months and her situation.

“Does it look like we work in a safe environment, when the destination point if you’re hurt is weaponized use of your experience on live TV every Monday night for months? By their actions and reactions, that says a lot more about current leadership than it does about me”

She said to make change, you have to show up, especially if it’s a tough conversation.

“To the board of TKO, if you didn’t know this part of your origin story, now you know. I hope you will have conversations with us. I will hope you have conversations amongst yourselves, and I hope that you don’t rely on old instincts with new insight. Leadership perhaps means stepping into the unknown, listening, and discussing things, even when they’re hard.”

Grant spoke for roughly 16 minutes.

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