Vince and Linda McMahon Named in New ‘Ring Boy’ Intercourse Abuse Lawsuit Towards WWE

On Wednesday, 5 males who had labored as “ring boys” for World Wrestling Leisure as younger youngsters within the Nineteen Eighties filed a lawsuit alleging that they had been groomed and sexually abused by ring crew boss and ring announcer Mel Phillips on the corporate’s watch. The go well with, filed by 5 John Does, names WWE, mother or father firm TKO Group Holdings, and WWE co-founders/former executives Vince and Linda McMahon as defendants. (Phillips died in 2012.) The go well with paints an image of Phillips as somebody to whom WWE gave unfettered entry to youngsters and the means to abuse them, akin to personal locker rooms. The plaintiffs’ allegations are buoyed by proof already within the public document pointing to ongoing information of the alleged abuse by these on the high of WWE, significantly the McMahons. Whereas there are two beforehand identified lawsuits by former ring boys alleging sexual assault in opposition to Phillips, this submitting marks the primary time that the McMahons have been named personally as defendants. It additionally instantly ties Linda, the co-chair of Donald Trump’s 2024 transition crew, to the alleged cover-up of kid sexual abuse at a time when far-right influencers are trying to gin up fabricated pedophilia allegations in opposition to Trump rival and Democratic Social gathering operating mate Tim Walz.

“Because of the extraordinary braveness of our purchasers, we now have the chance to carry accountable the WWE, and its leaders for the final 40-plus years, Vince and Linda McMahon, who enabled the rampant abuse of those younger boys,” legal professional Greg Gutzler instructed Rolling Stone in a press release. “The WWE group and the McMahons had the next responsibility to guard the Ring Boys, but they failed in essentially the most appalling approach. The Grievance particulars simply among the info underlying this scheme of abuse. We’re sure there will probably be vital developments within the coming months that may illuminate, even additional, the systemic corruption and abuse contained in the WWE. We’re dedicated to uncovering the reality behind this long-running, insidious abuse, and we honor our purchasers’ bravery by vowing to relentlessly pursue justice on their behalf.”

“Greater than 30 years in the past, the columnist Phil Mushnick tried to make headlines with these identical false claims. These allegations had been by no means confirmed and in the end grew to become the topic of a defamation lawsuit in opposition to Mr. Mushnick,” says Jessica Rosenberg, an legal professional for Vince McMahon. “The negligence claims in opposition to Mr. McMahon that had been asserted as we speak depend on these identical absurd, defamatory, and completely meritless statements by Mr. Mushnick. We’ll vigorously defend Mr. McMahon and are assured the court docket will discover that these claims are unfaithful and unfounded.”

“The foregoing admissions and accounts set up not solely that Defendants knew or ought to have identified about Phillips’s sexual harassment and abuse of the Ring Boys, however that Defendants failed to guard the Ring Boys and knowingly fostered and allowed a tradition of sexual misconduct to permeate the WWE,” reads the criticism. The particular causes of motion being cited within the criticism in opposition to all defendants are negligence in addition to negligent hiring, coaching, and retention.

A historical past of authorized points

That Phillips allegedly preyed on kids who labored for him had been publicly mentioned since 1992, when the San Diego Union Tribune reported that Tom Cole and Chris Loss, who had labored as ring boys, accused Phillips of abusing them in service of his foot fetish. However exterior of wrestling-centric fanzines, daytime TV, and tabloids — particularly the New York Put up — the story was largely ignored by main media shops. On the time, Vince McMahon instructed the media that he had lengthy suspected kids weren’t secure round Philips. These feedback got here within the bigger context of a reckoning concerning the prevalence of anabolic steroid abuse by the WWE roster in addition to allegations of sexual harassment in opposition to Phillips’ direct supervisor, Terry Garvin, and Garvin’s personal childhood buddy turned superior, Pat Patterson. It was routine for WWE announcers to joke on television about wrestlers having attended the “Terry Garvin Faculty of Self-Protection.” But WWE’s behavior of going scorched earth with authorized threats and different interference, as documented by the likes of The Village Voice and pro wrestling newsletter Three Count, seemingly scared off nationwide legacy media from masking the ring boy story. 

I’ve reported extensively on the scandal, together with in a 2020 feature for Business Insider which is cited all through the brand new criticism. As I define in that story, the Put up’s Phil Mushnick wrote in a March 1992 column that Vince McMahon had instructed him that, in Mushnick’s phrases, “he had let Phillips go 4 years in the past as a result of Phillips’ relationship with youngsters appeared peculiar and unnatural,” however employed him again after telling him to keep away from kids. After McMahon and WWE sued Mushnick and the Put up a 12 months later for defamation, the veteran sports activities columnist elaborated in a deposition that McMahon instructed him that “Vince and Linda returned Phillips to the group with the caveat that Mel avoid underaged boys, cease hanging round youngsters, and cease chasing after youngsters.” That lawsuit was later dropped. The one ring boy identified to provoke authorized motion in 1992 was Tom Cole, however he settled with WWE in change for a $55,000 settlement and a brand new job; a 1993 go well with after Phillips was fired was dismissed for causes that aren’t clear from the general public document. One other ring boy sued in 1999; by all indications, that case was settled. In 2021, I reported on my Substack blog that, per FBI memos I obtained by way of a Freedom of Data Act request, the federal authorities had “recognized 10 victims of Phillips.” Additionally in keeping with these memos, the FBI didn’t pursue prices partially as a result of not one of the 10 boys they spoke to had been “prepared to confess to or describe the sexual nature of their exercise with Phillips,” a press release contradicted by the allegations Cole and others made in 1992.

In responding to a request for remark to my 2020 Enterprise Insider story, since-retired WWE legal professional Jerry McDevitt characterised the concept the McMahons had been conscious of Phillips’ proclivities as “outlandish” and “basic libel.” Nonetheless, he ignored all direct questions on what McMahon had reportedly instructed Mushnick in 1992. And although McMahon and WWE sued Mushnick and the Put up for defamation, they by no means really argued that Mushnick had lied about McMahon’s March 1992 admissions. Each the brand new lawsuit and my 2020 article additionally cite a number of examples of former WWE personnel indicating that it was frequent information that Phillips was sexually abusing ring boys. As well as, as I reported on my Substack blog in 2021 and as can be cited within the 2024 criticism, information obtained from FOIA requests and reveals within the Mushnick lawsuit present that each WWE (in 1992) and the FBI (in 1993) got here into possession of a videotape that confirmed Phillips doing precisely what a number of boys accused him of doing: forcefully rubbing a boy’s foot on his crotch. 

5 new John Does communicate out

Within the new lawsuit, 4 of the 5 males describe abuse going down within the first half of the Nineteen Eighties, with John Doe 2 saying that his abuse prolonged into 1989, after Vince McMahon had fired and rehired Phillips. All 5 describe sexual abuse that started with Phillips focusing on them as wrestling followers he met at or round exhibits he was engaged on, or in social conditions close to his residence in Philadelphia.

Within the criticism, John Doe 1, a 13-year-old in 1981-1982 who was making an attempt to keep away from bodily abuse at residence, describes a grooming course of that started with Phillips giving him entry to an area and locker room space, together with a personal room over which Phillips had management. The day they met, he alleges, Phillips groped his genitals however tried to play it off like a mistake. Based on the criticism, just a few weeks later, Phillips stripped all the way down to his underwear in his resort room and “wrestled” the boy, suffocating him whereas disregarding his protests, massaging the boy’s legs and licking his naked toes. This was the beginning of an escalating cycle of abuse, John Doe 1 alleges.

The subsequent time John Doe 1 noticed Phillips was at a WWE present in Springfield, Massachusetts, in keeping with the criticism. There, he says, Phillips launched him and two different boys to numerous wrestlers earlier than bringing them to a personal room with an connected rest room. “Phillips then took the boys within the rest room and commenced hugging them and touching their legs, genitals, and buttocks,” reads the criticism. “Phillips began grinding his genitals on the boys, and John Doe 1 may really feel that Phillips was aroused.” Later, he alleges, Phillips drove John Doe 1 and a second boy from Springfield to Philadelphia for a present on the Spectrum, and rubbed Doe’s leg all through the journey. 

John Doe 1 offers a very prolonged and detailed narrative of abuse — “roughly seven or eight” incidents over a 12-to-18-month interval, after every of which Phillips allegedly gave him cash and instructed him to not inform his dad and mom. The incidents included Phillips ejaculating on on John Doe 1’s abdomen, “painfully manipulat[ing]” his toes after which “lick[ing] them for a very long time,” “forc[ing] John Doe 1 to the touch Phillips’s personal genitals along with his mouth and fingers, and tr[ying] to penetrate John Doe 1.” After an incident the place he alleges that Phillips tried to rape him and several other different boys in a resort room, Doe says he was so scared that he minimize off contact.

John Doe 2, 13 on the time, met Phillips exterior an area in Massachusetts in 1984. On this case, Doe alleges that Phillips didn’t make a lot of an effort to groom him. “After speaking about wrestling, Phillips mentioned he needed a favor and to comply with him to the dressing room,” in keeping with the criticism. “As soon as there, Phillips threw him to the bottom, acquired on high of him, took off his footwear, and commenced pulling and twisting his toes and toes in a painful approach. Phillips additionally put John Doe 2’s toes close to Phillips’ crotch, and it felt like he was sexually aroused. Phillips additionally pressed his fingers in opposition to the buttocks and groin space of John Doe 2.”

Within the criticism, John Doe 2 alleges that Phillips continued with comparable abuse in different resort rooms and in personal area locker rooms, recording the abuse on his video digicam. “Phillips would be capable of seize and fondle his toes and physique, together with touching his buttocks, between the legs, and within the groin,” the criticism provides, embedding a photograph of Phillips pinning him down along with his knee bent again and his foot in Phillips’ face. “John Doe 2 witnessed Phillips equally abuse different younger boys,” the criticism provides after the picture. He additionally alleges that Phillips took pictures and movies of the abuse.

John Doe 3 was residing in a foster residence in Pennsylvania when he met Phillips within the early Nineteen Eighties. “Once they met, Mel defined who he was, requested if he favored wrestling, helped him meet a pair wrestlers, and supplied to take him to Philadelphia for a present,” reads the criticism. “Phillips would choose him up and drive him to Hamburg, Pennsylvania the place the WWE did tapings.” (WWE’s closing taping in Hamburg was on Could 30, 1984, so this means the abuse befell earlier than then.) 

“Phillips wrestled him to the bottom and began squeezing and twisting his toes to make him submit,” reads the criticism’s description of 1 hotel-room incident. “Whereas sporting nothing however a small T-shirt and underwear, Phillips then acquired rougher by pinning him on his again… Phillips then rubbed his genitals on John Doe 3’s legs and toes till he orgasmed.” After they fell asleep in the identical mattress, Doe 3 alleges that Phillips grinded up in opposition to him till he orgasmed whereas repeating, “It’s OK, it’s OK.” The subsequent morning, Phillips drove him residence and paid him for his ring crew work. The plaintiff alleges that Phillips would typically give him “soda” that “tasted completely different than regular soda” and induced him to turn into lightheaded, all as a pretext to additional sexual abuse. As with John Doe 2, he claims that  Phillips shot pictures and movies of the abuse.

John Doe 4 met Phillips when he was roughly 13 years previous, sooner or later between 1983 and 1985. Phillips often drove across the Philadelphia neighborhood the place Doe and two of his pals lived, and struck up sufficient of a rapport that he was quickly driving them across the metropolis. A confidential witness cited within the criticism, described as a sibling of one in every of Doe’s pals, echoed their allegations in an interview with Rolling Stone. The witness remembers that, on a number of events, she witnessed how Phillips would “drive onto their road, watch the boys play, and present all of them WWE championship belts that he saved in his automobile.” The witness provides that after Phillips would take the boys out, “they often returned drunk.”

“As just a bit [sibling] sitting there, you’d hear them speak and listen to how drunk they had been,” the witness tells Rolling Stone. “We might simply sit on the nook and speak, and I’m listening to them speak. I’m like, ‘What the fuck?’”

Based on the criticism, after one present in Landover, Maryland, Phillips and the boys decamped to a motel, the place he served them alcohol. When John Doe 4 acquired so drunk that he vomited, Phillips took him into the lavatory beneath the pretext of cleansing him up and acquired within the bathe with him, forcibly touching his genitals and guiding Doe’s hand to his personal penis to masturbate him to orgasm. Throughout this encounter, Phillips additionally tried to rape Doe.

John Doe 4 and his pals labored as a part of Phillips’ ring crew on “roughly six or seven WWE exhibits on the [Philadelphia] Spectrum,” at all times capable of get within the performers’ entrance by telling safety that they had been there to fulfill up with Phillips. On every event, “Phillips ‘wrestled’ John Doe 4 and the opposite underaged boys, pinning them on the bottom, laying on high of their backsides along with his groin of their buttocks, bending their limbs, and twisting and pulling their toes.” Phillips additionally continued along with his alleged modus operandi of utilizing the boys’ toes to the touch his genitals. Doe notes within the criticism that Phillips “typically” did this stuff in entrance of assorted wrestlers, in addition to retired wrestler Pat Patterson, who served as one in every of Vince McMahon’s high lieutenants. 

The criticism additionally describes an event the place Phillips allegedly gave the boys beer and John Doe 4 handed out. “The subsequent day, John Doe 4 observed blood in his underwear and skilled fecal incontinence which had not occurred to him earlier than,” the criticism alleges. “Confidential Witness #1’s brother (one of many pals of John Doe 4) instructed their different sibling that Phillips put issues in his rectum.”

John Doe 5 says within the criticism that he was roughly 15 years previous when he met Phillips circa 1983-1984. As with John Doe 4, he was a Philadelphia native who acquired to know Phillips when the announcer would drive by way of his neighborhood displaying off the WWE props he saved in his automobile, like championship belts. Within the criticism, Doe alleges that the abuse began after a visit to Landover, Maryland, the place “Phillips plied John Doe 5 and different boys with alcohol Phillips saved in his automobile.” At a neighborhood motel, Phillips “wrestled” the boys, which included, simply as the opposite plaintiffs described, “laying on high of their backsides along with his groin of their buttocks,” twisting their toes, and placing Doe’s foot on his (Phillips’) genitals whereas he was aroused. The criticism additionally embeds {a photograph} Doe took of two of his pals in one of many resort rooms they shared with Phillips, the place one of many boys seems to have stripped all the way down to his underwear and what seems to be a beer can is seen within the background. 

The WWE has spent the previous couple of years mired in sexual misconduct scandals. Vince McMahon resigned as CEO in July 2022 after a sequence of Wall Street Journal reports revealed that the corporate’s board of administrators was investigating $12 million that he had paid out in sexual misconduct settlements. The Journal additionally later reported that, in late 2022, seemingly motivated by a requirement letter and New York’s Grownup Victims Act lifting the statute of limitations, he paid a settlement “within the thousands and thousands of {dollars}” to former WWE referee Rita Chatterton, who alleged that McMahon raped her in 1986. McMahon staged a hostile takeover in January 2023, utilizing further voting energy granted to him as a McMahon member of the family to push himself again into the corporate. However that tense scenario escalated in January 2024, when Janel Grant, a former WWE worker, sued Vince McMahon, WWE, and former govt John Laurinaitis, alleging rape and intercourse trafficking, resulting in Vince’s second resignation from the corporate he based (with no likelihood of a second hostile takeover because of the elimination of his particular voting energy). The Grant go well with is presently paused because the Division of Justice investigates McMahon for potential associated prison prices.

“The allegations within the ‘ring boys’ lawsuit in opposition to WWE are deeply troubling,” Grant’s legal professional, Ann Callis, wrote in a press release on Wendesday. “Vince McMahon made sexual abuse and human trafficking a trademark of WWE’s tradition for many years. Survivors like Janel Grant and different former WWE staff deserve their day in court docket. All former WWE staff who skilled sexual abuse and harassment ought to be allowed to inform the reality by having their non-disclosure agreements waived. Ms. Grant stands by all WWE survivors and believes that Mr. McMahon, WWE, and all concerned events should be held accountable.”

It stays to be seen how the brand new lawsuit will play out, past bringing new consideration to a narrative that had lengthy remained buried. “These grown adults? They knew,” the lawsuit’s confidential witness instructed Rolling Stone in an interview when requested if there was a single message she needed to hammer residence. Adults who gave Mel Phillips the chance to storm into their neighborhood as “[the] man who got here with shiny belts.”

Replace, Oct. 23, 6 p.m.: This story now features a assertion from Vince McMahon’s legal professional.