Vince McMahon Sex Trafficking Lawsuit Update – McMahon Responds to Janel Grant’s Motion Opposing His Comments & Private Arbitration Request

As noted before, former WWE employee Janel Grant filed a lawsuit this past January against TKO Executive Chairman Vince McMahon accusing McMahon of committing sex trafficking and sexual abuse towards her during her time in the company. McMahon and former WWE Head of Talent Relations John Laurinaitis recently filed motions requesting for Grant’s lawsuit to be moved to private arbitration and WWE is expected to officially do the same soon.

Wrestlenomics’ Brandon Thurston reported that McMahon’s attorneys filed a new memorandum earlier today before The United States District Court of Connecticut. In the filing, McMahon responded opposing Grant’s recent motion asking for McMahon’s comments against her and request for the lawsuit to be moved to private arbitration to be stricken from the case.

Portion of McMahon’s memorandum filing:

Plaintiff’s Motion to Strike is meritless and the height of hypocrisy. Having falsely accused Defendant in a public forum, despite an obligation to arbitrate, in an inflammatory 67- page Complaint that completely disregards the mandate of Rule 8(a)(2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Plaintiff now seeks to strike the Preliminary Statement of the Memorandum of Law in Support of Defendant’s Motion to Compel Arbitration (Dkt. No. 30-1) on the purported basis that it is too “inflammatory.” Plaintiff fails to demonstrate, nor could she based on the standard, that this Court should use its “inherent power”—a power that must be exercised with restraint and discretion—to strike a preliminary statement providing context to a motion to compel arbitration. In addition, motions made under Rule 12(f), on which Plaintiff relies, are rarely granted and the Rule is inapplicable here because Defendant’s Preliminary Statement is contained in its Memorandum of Law, which is not a pleading. Even if the Court were to invoke its inherent power and even if Rule 12(f) were somehow applicable, the Motion should be denied as the Preliminary Statement, including the pertinent factual statements within it, provides relevant context to the Motion to Compel Arbitration.

Plaintiff chose to violate the Parties’ explicit agreement to “preserve the confidential and private nature” of any dispute that may arise by commencing this lawsuit. Ignoring her obligations to keep the nature of their relationship or the dispute private, the Complaint unnecessarily includes private sexual text messages from Defendant without including any of Plaintiff’s responses to those texts—responses which are equally and often more aggressive and provocative than Defendant’s communications and show not only that the relationship was consensual, but also that in many instances the Plaintiff was the initiator. Indeed, while Defendant no longer is in possession of the text messages between the Parties as he deleted them when he broke off the relationship, the discovery in this case will show that Plaintiff sent him sexually explicit images of herself and texted him to say, among other things:

* That she was in love with him and he was the love of her life;
* That he was her best friend;
* That she wanted to have sex with him and providing graphic detail;
* That she fantasized about being held down, enjoyed being in pain, and wanted rough sex;
* That she wanted Defendant to watch her have sex with other people and know about her sex with others;
* That she wanted Defendant to give her thousands of dollars for clothes, plastic surgery, and other gifts;
* That she wanted to have a future with Defendant even after signing the Agreement; and
* That she wanted Defendant to keep living in the same building, so she could continue to see him, even after signing the Agreement.

Plaintiff sent messages like this to Defendant through the entire duration of their relationship— including through the time they signed the Agreement in January 2022. Plaintiff presumably still has all of these text messages but she did not include them in her publicly filed Complaint because she wanted to paint a distorted, false picture It is indeed astonishing that after filing her highly salacious Complaint which omitted the truth about her own conduct, Plaintiff now takes issue with purported “mudslinging” and “vicious falsehoods attacking [one’s] moral character” in Defendant’s Motion to Compel Arbitration. (Dkt. Nos. 31 at 1; 31-1 at 3, 4.) Plaintiff cannot have it both ways, and her Motion should be denied for these reasons and those set forth herein.