Photo: Getty Images
World Wrestling Entertainment and its former chairman Vince McMahon have been accused of failing to stop the sexual exploitation of young "ring boys" in the 1980s and 1990s as part of a new lawsuit filed on behalf of five alleged victims on Wednesday (October 23), NBC News reports.
McMahon, his wife Linda, and WWE, as well as its new parent company, TKO Holdings, were named in the lawsuit filed in Baltimore County alleging they allowed "open, rampant abuse" of the young boys, reported to be as young as 12 at the time, who were assistants to ringside announcer Mel Phillips. Phillips, who died in 2012, reportedly "groomed, exploited, and sexually abused" the underage boys, targeting "children from broken homes," according to law firms DiCello Levitt and Murphy, Falcon & Murphy, which filed the lawsuit.
The alleged assaults reportedly took place at wrestling events, as well as hotels and other venues, as Phillips "lured and manipulated" the young boys on the promise of them meeting wrestlers. The lawsuit also claims that Phillips would film incidents of sexual abuse in his dressing room.
The claimants, who were all referred to as John Does, include two individuals from Massachusetts, two from Pennsylvania and one from Florida. The lawsuit accuses Vince McMahon of being aware of Phillips' "peculiar and unnatural interest" in young boys and notes that McMahon had fired Phillips in 1988 amid pedophilia allegations only to rehire him six weeks later on the condition that he "steer away from kids," which Phillips "did not, and they knew it."
The claimants reportedly learned how much the defendants knew about the alleged incidents partially due to the ongoing lawsuit from Janel Grant, who is accusing McMahon of sex trafficking and forcing her into a sexual relationship on the promise of employment. A recent six-part Netflix documentary, Mr. McMahon, addressed both the Janel Grant lawsuit and the Mel Phillips 'ring boys' scandal, as well as several other accusations of conduct against the disgraced former WWE chairman.
McMahon and former executive John Laurinaitis were both specifically mentioned in the Janel Grant lawsuit, which alleges "sex trafficking, civil battery, intentional or negligent infliction of emotional distress and negligence." McMahon officially resigned from his position as executive chairman of TKO, a parent company launched by Endeavor following its purchase of WWE in April 2023, last Friday (January 26).
In July 2022, the Wall Street Journal, which exclusively reported WWE's investigation a $3 million hush-money settlement paid by McMahon to a woman over an alleged affair, reported that the 79-year-old paid more than $12 million in hush money to four women during the past 16 years in an effort to suppress allegations of sexual misconduct and infidelity.
Linda McMahon served as WWE's president and later CEO from 1980 to 2009 and later as Small Business Administration chief as part of former President Donald Trump's administration from 2017 to 2019.