Janel Grant Responds To Anonymous Emails That First Tipped Off WWE Board Of Directors

Janel Grant distanced herself from anonymous emails sent to WWE executives, exhibited in the shareholder lawsuit that was settled in principle last week.

Grant's own lawsuit, filed in January 2024 alleging sexual abuse and trafficking at the hands of Vince McMahon during her time working for the company, looks set to go into private arbitration following a joint motion filed on Thursday.

Her allegations were central to the shareholder suit, given shareholders were suing over the WWE-UFC merger under Endeavor being predetermined, on the basis that McMahon could remain an executive despite the allegations of sexual misconduct and related NDA payments. 

As such, anonymous emails have been uncovered from someone purporting to be a friend of Grant, addressed to several executives describing similar allegations to Grant's. The emails were sent on March 30, April 11, and April 14, 2022.

However, Grant disputes much of what is said in the emails; the first one makes mention of the sender living on the street, addiction to Percocet, and later getting sober with Grant. In her Instagram post Grant said:

"There is no person who knew me in life pre-dating 2019 who could write this... A friend? I see a trick to steer public perception. Homeless? I shared my background at work. Rehab? I shared my experience with grief counselling at work. Addiction? I shared that quitting nicotine lozenges wasn't easy at work. A threat to expose info? It's a highly reactive environment with security vendors in place. The rest of the email? It repackages years of time and illogical events involving a lot of people who have eyeballs into a logic sounding storyline with only a few people. This email doesn't contain allegations. This email is a storyline."

The first email reads: 

"My friend worked at WWE. She is [redacted] and we live [sic] homeless for a while on percs etc. etc. We went to get cleaned up together and she met chief chairman Vince McMahon not too long after that. Vince McMahon gave her a job and paid her one hundred thousand dollars every years until he started f***ing her then he paid her two hundred thousand dollar a year he is 80 years old and took my friends soul just because he could...

"...Vince McMahon gave her like a toy his friend John who works at WWE too, John is 70 and her boss too. My friend was so scared she quit after Vince McMahon and lawyer Jerry paid her millions of dollars to shut up I am going to the media as well I don't want anything from from I just want the world to know the truth about this pervert."

All emails contained inaccuracies beyond grammar and spelling, the first one providing the wrong ages for McMahon and Laurinaitis, which were 76 and 59 respectively at the time. Grant is also described as 25 years old in later emails, when she was 41 at the time in question.

It was suggested in the emails that McMahon had recorded and kept explicit content of alleged sexual assault by himself and Laurinaitis against Grant. Defunct media outlet Deadspin is also named as another party the sender was purportedly talking to on the same topic. The outlet did not publish anything about the matter at that time.

"I'm pretty sick over whether this is implying a revenge porn situation and whether it extends to Deadspin. A media company. I'm sick over whether this is implying I was being filmed and didn't know it. I'm sick over whatever it is that I don't know," Grant said of the emails in her post.

In a later post, Grant published transcripts of WWE President Nick Khan and former Chief Financial Officer Frank Riddick's depositions, pertaining to the emails, from the shareholder suit.

Khan said he had seen the emails and was aware that they described Grant – her name is redacted in the transcript. When asked what his initial reaction was, he said, "There's a lot of passionate wrestling fans out there – and we get emails that are, you know, sort of a little erratic all the time, sometimes threatening to – you know, myself or colleagues. Upon reading this first email, it felt to me like it was more like that. I didn't – it didn't register to be real in my mind."

Khan confirmed he signed off on Grant's promotion, though he would not confirm the figures; said to be between $100,000 dollars a year to $200,000. He said he talked to McMahon about the emails, though he said he did not provide a substantive response and said something to the effect of he would look at it.

Khan said that he felt the second email felt more real, in that it listed Grant's name and he knew who she was. He said that after the second email, he remembered it became a serious matter, and he asked Riddick to check if any payments had been made by WWE to Grant other than standard payroll.

In Riddick's deposition, he confirmed that he was a recipient of the emails. He declined being aware of a romantic or sexual relationship between Grant and McMahon, knowing who sent the emails, or ever trying to find out who sent the emails. He claimed he had no guess as to who sent them, and did not know how the sender obtained the addresses of the recipients.

Riddick did admit that he understood the WWE board to have investigated who sent the emails, though he did not know whether they succeeded. He continued to say that he thought the first email was a "fishing expedition try to extort money from the company," though the second email and its specificity led him to believe it was not a scam but real.

He said that, after the first email, he immediately contacted the general counsel and acting head of human resources, sending them a copy of the email and asking whether they were aware of any allegations that would fit the description against Vince.

Along with the depositions, Grant posted an article from announcing a change of counsel for WWE on April 7, 2022, between the first and second emails. The article notes that Samira Shah exited the company under "murky circumstances" and was being replaced by Elisebeth Collins. Collins left the company that same year and now works as an executive for Walmart.