According to a Wall Street Journal article, WWE’s Vince McMahon paid four women more than $12 million over 16 years to bury claims of sexual misbehavior and infidelity.
According to the Journal, which cited sources acquainted with the contracts and papers, all of the women had prior connections to World Wrestling Entertainment. The journal said in June that the board of WWE was looking into a covert $3 million settlement McMahon allegedly paid to a paralegal with whom he had an affair.
In its report on Friday, the Journal detailed three additional hush-money payments made between 2006 and 2018: one for $7.5 million to a former wrestler who claimed McMahon forced her to have oral sex and later terminated her contract after she refused further sexual encounters; another for $1 million to a woman who had worked as a WWE contractor and claimed she received unwanted nude photos from McMahon; and a third for roughly $1 million to a for-profit organization.
Following a report of his alleged wrongdoing, WWE announced last month that McMahon would be stepping down from his positions as CEO and chairman while continuing to oversee the company’s creative output. Stephanie McMahon, his daughter, was appointed as acting CEO.
According to the Journal, the WWE board is looking into McMahon’s dealings with the wrestler and the former paralegal. The charges against WWE executive John Laurinaitis, formerly known as Johnny Ace, are also being looked into by the WWE board.
Several anonymous emails that threatened to divulge information about the settlement between McMahon and the former paralegal sparked the probe, which got underway in April, according to the Journal.
Friday, the share price of WWE was down nearly 1% to $64.21.
