Backstage Reaction to Vince McMahon’s “Hush Money” Payments & McMahon’s Reaction Over Initial Report

As noted before, Vince McMahon recently temporarily stepped down as CEO and Chairman of WWE until the conclusion of the company’s investigation into McMahon’s alleged misconduct towards several former female employees. These allegations include McMahon paying secret settlements which was recently revealed to be over $12 million in total to four women over the past sixteen years.

Fightful Select reported that one WWE staff member spoken to stated that McMahon’s response backstage since the Wall Street Journal’s initial report would often go from “no selling the whole thing” to “being defiant” over the matter. This same person also stated that following his return to the Gorilla position from his televised appearance on the June 17th SmackDown show, McMahon shouted out a vulgar response of “Fuck em!” seemingly in response to the allegations against him.

It was reported that following the Wall Street Journal’s initial report, one former WWE talent had contacted them stating that “at least one major story” would come out within the next several weeks but did not feel comfortable revealing the specific story. This same talent reportedly later confirmed that this story was tied to the former WWE female talent who was paid $7.5 million by McMahon in a secret settlement deal in 2018.

It was reported that those spoken to within WWE’s writing team stated that there had been heavy rumors regarding McMahon’s inappropriate behavior towards several women in the company but it is not known if elements of coercion by McMahon and the existence of NDAs were well known within the writing team. One former WWE writer spoken to stated that McMahon’s secret relationships would be a half-joking excuse as to why he’d be late to production meetings before television shows.

In regards to John Laurinaitis, those spoken to stated that they still believe he will be fired from WWE but also currently believe he has a “golden parachute” deal with the company that will likely take care of him financially. One high level WWE source spoken to stated that “Johnny Ace’s ninth life is about to be lost.”

It was reported that while talent have not been available to speak on the record regarding McMahon’s allegations and the reports about it, several talents spoken to privately expressed their displeasure and extreme frustration over McMahon’s handling of it backstage.