Vince McMahon relinquished his role as CEO and Chairman of WWE in 2022 following reports of hush-money allegations.
Although McMahon remained involved in and influenced the creative process, he departed the company in September after the WWE-UFC merger, when he assumed the role of Executive Chairman of TKO.
The 78-year-old billionaire ultimately resigned from TKO earlier this year following severe allegations made by former WWE employee Janel Grant.
Grant filed a lawsuit against McMahon, John Laurinaitis, and WWE, accusing McMahon of sex trafficking, rape, and more.
Chris Legentil, WWE’s Head of Communications and Executive Vice President for Talent Relations, spoke about the company’s approach to ongoing legal matters on a recent edition of the “Sports Media” podcast.
Legentil said, “Reporters such as Brandon Thurston and John Pollock, I’ll give those guys a shout. I think they really do good work. They’ve reported on the federal lawsuit accusing Vince McMahon and another former executive of sexual misconduct…How would you assess how forthcoming the WWE has been when it comes to Vince McMahon and the lawsuits that have been out there? I would say that related to active legal situations, there’s clearly a limit on what we were able to say. But that said, as that investigation has gone on over time, we’ve been compliant all the way along and all the way through. And when we have the opportunity to answer questions, we do. And when there’s not that opportunity, we don’t. And the media we found have understood that because they realize that sometimes there’s a lane we can take and other times there’s not. But we agree that Brandon and John do good work. And, you know, you see them as regulars at our shows, at our press conferences, and they’re doing their jobs as reporters and we’re doing our job as the company.”
He continued, ”So let me be clear on this point. We could not have better management than Nick Khan and Paul Levesque. They are excellent business people, but they understand the direction that the company needs to go. And I think that you’ve probably seen that in a lot of talent comments that they believe in the vision that Nick and Paul have.
And I think that more broadly, when you look at the fact that WWE is now part of TKO and a part of a media company that is run by Ari Emanuel, Mark Shapiro, Andrew Schleimer, Maura McGreevy, really top-level executives, that management has never been stronger. And people, both talent and current and future employees should feel great about that.”
Since his resignation, McMahon has divested a significant portion of his ownership in TKO. Meanwhile, WWE expects the feds to find dirt on McMahon.
