Janel Grant Speaks Out: There Are Still WWE Employees 'Living And Working In Fear'

Janel Grant made her first public appearance at a briefing for the Connecticut Alliance to End Sexual Violence on Thursday, addressing an audience of survivors, legislators, and advocates. 

Grant filed a civil lawsuit against Vince McMahon, WWE, and initially John Laurinaitis in January 2024, alleging that during her time working for the company she was sexually exploited and abused by those in power. 

McMahon denies any wrongdoing, and has always maintained that any sexual relationship was consensual. But further to that, he contends that Grant is in breach of a non-disclosure agreement, and wishes to compel private arbitration as is termed under the agreement. 

At the briefing, Grant spoke about that agreement and what its terms meant for her when her story was brought to public without her consent. 

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

She continued, "I got a call that I didn't expect on the day of a very big meeting of a new job I had... Saying that any moment the Wall Street Journal would be publishing 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 acknowledge it, I can't say, 'I'm not okay.' And if anybody approaches me, I can't acknowledge years of my life to people who saw me live it." 

Grant detailed that she blacked out after the call, feeling like "somebody set fire to my home intentionally with me still inside of it," and attempted suicide.

"I ended up in a closet with a belt and a stool placed under a metal rod, and thank God somebody saw me and stopped it. But that is the life wreck and mental health impact of this particular NDA."

She then expanded on the unfair power balance of NDAs like the one between her and McMahon, explaining that workplace safety depends on transparency to highlight patterns of malpractice.

"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 behavior it simply relocates the harm to next employee, the next office, the next victim. No one should be required to trade silence for accountability," she said.

Expanding on the agreement between her and McMahon, she described it as one to break the hamster wheel and a cautionary tale as to what not to see in an NDA. She noted five "lanes of traffic" pertaining to this one agreement, including SEC, DOJ, and private investigations.

"This NDA was a tool that Vince could use to justify anything while I remained in a system of exploitation. And actually in a position for anyone to exploit me," she said.

Grant then explained that in June 2022, the company reached out and requested for her to make a joint statement that her and McMahon shared a consensual relationship, suggesting more money could be on the table for her agreement. But she refused, only to later find a company spokesperson had made that statement for her in a follow-up.

"Leaving out one half of an experiencing party in a decision like that is not consent," she said of the decision. She also said that she spent six figures to participate in the company's private investigation, after she had been told her participation would not be considered a breach of the NDA.

She said she was contacted during that time regarding the federal investigation, and upon sending evidence to be reviewed was informed that there was now a covert investigation into human trafficking and criminal conduct by McMahon and WWE.

"If you want to know why my case, my federal civil lawsuit, is not an employment law case, that is because the feds requested I say nothing, that this be covert, that they could do the work that they needed to do to investigate human trafficking and criminal misconduct," she noted.

However, she said that while she was preparing to participate, the company investigation had been closed without speaking to her. She said three years and five law firms had yet to surmise where and when she breached the NDA to this point. And she was left feeling punished for cooperating with the federal investigations.

In March 2023, she said the SEC had granted her whistleblower status, and the FBI started to send her communications indicating that she had been identified as a potential victim – letters she said she continued to receive for two and a half years.

Grant said that when she decided to file her suit in January 2024, it was at the "last conceivable second" because she knew what it would entail. But she felt as though she had been dragged into federal investigations by the NDA.

"All the things that have happened that have made my life feel so small and isolated. I didn't start that. It's like it found me," she said, before continuing to outline two acts since the lawsuit intended to humiliate her.

"First, during this federal investigation a 'love letter' was reportedly found on a corporate laptop and published in the New York Post... This was a public humiliation and intimidation of a person who gets letters from the FBI that say victim, and it's also witness intimidation discouraging others from speaking out, speaking to, or even associating with me for fear of their own well-being and their families'."

Then she outlined a storyline that had been noted as carrying striking parallels to Grant's allegations, which while she did not name was the beginnings of Liv Morgan and Dominik Mysterio's on-screen pairing.

"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 their reactions, it says a lot more about current leadership than it does me," she said.

Repeatedly in her address had she said that there were still employees "living and working in fear" in a headquarters in Connecticut, alluding to WWE's headquarters. And she also addressed the board of TKO in a call to action.

"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 hope you will have conversations amongst yourselves, and I hope you don't rely on old instincts with new insight... Leadership means stepping into the unknown, listening, and discussing things even when they're hard. Be willing to take first steps."