Janel Grant described the past few years of her life and the restrictions she faced from an NDA with former WWE Chairman Vince McMahon during her first public appearance.
In her first public appearance after filing a lawsuit against Vince McMahon and WWE, Janel Grant spoke at a briefing for the Connecticut Alliance to End Sexual Violence. Filed in 2024, the suit cites allegations of sex trafficking, sexual assault, and several other abuses.
In her 16-minute address, Janel Grant claimed people working at the WWE headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, are still fearful and intimidated despite Vince McMahon’s exit.
Janel Grant began by saying, “By a series of miracles that I can’t account for, I’m alive today.” She then continued to describe her life since the 2022 Wall Street Journal story about the WWE Board of Directors investigating a secret settlement deal involving her and Vince McMahon.
“I got a call that I didn’t expect on the day of a very big meeting of a new job I had, and it was in front of my new bosses, and it was in front of a high-rise full of residents whose homes I was entrusted to protect.
“So imagine me getting a phone call I didn’t expect, saying that at any minute the Wall Street Journal would be publishing a story about me, Vince McMahon, and a non-disclosure agreement,” Janel Grant continued.
“I was told, if anybody asks me about this, I can’t make a comment, I can’t acknowledge it, I can’t say I’m not okay, and If anybody approaches me, I can’t acknowledge years of life to people who saw me live it.
“And it was like somebody set fire to my home intentionally with me still inside of it. So I blacked out and I ended up in a closet with a belt and a stool placed under a little rod. And thank God somebody saw me and stopped it,” Janel Grant said.
Janel Grant says WWE reached out to her to participate in a joint statement
Speaking about the dangers of workplace NDAs, Janel Grant stated, “When an NDA is used to conceal dangerous behavior, it simply relocates the harm to the next employee, the next office, the next victim.”
She further noted that she isolated herself from society due to her situation and that she’s deeply struggling, financially devastated, and has no family.
Grant mentioned experiencing “coercive control,” something her legal counsel has also claimed in her civil lawsuit against Vince McMahon and WWE. She noted that she remained in a system of exploitation since the NDA essentially allowed McMhon to justify anything.
“This NDA was a tool that Vince could use to justify anything while I remained in a system of exploitation and actually in a position for anyone to exploit me,” she said.
Janel Grant also revealed that WWE reached out to her after the initial Wall Street Journal report. She said she was asked to participate in a joint statement to label the relationship with McMahon as “consensual.” She noted that they were willing to offer something in exchange, which she interpreted as money. She then said that despite her refusal to participate in the joint statement, WWE went ahead to call it a consensual relationship without her consent.
Grant spent six figures participating in WWE’s internal investigation
Speaking further, Janel Grant revealed that she spent “six figures” to participate in the WWE internal investigation with legal retainers and “medical care that saved my life”. She then recalled the feds reaching out, and after she gave them her evidence, they told her that it has now become a covert investigation.
“I believed that somehow I would be interviewed for this investigation and get my life back and figured out what happened. Then the feds reached out ahead of speaking with me.
“So while our hair was on fire and getting everyone onboarded, we gave them my evidence and said, review this in advance. The feds informed us that this was now a covert investigation into human trafficking and the criminal misconduct of WWE, Vince McMahon and this NDA.
“And if you want to know why this case, my federal civil lawsuit, is not an employment law case, that is because the feds requested that I say nothing, that this be covert, that they could do the work that they needed to do to investigate human trafficking and criminal misconduct,” Janel Grant said.
“So I don’t know how many more red flags you need, but going into 2024, when I filed my federal civil lawsuit at the last conceivable second, because I really didn’t want to do this, I knew what I would be about to throw my life into, but I had been dragged in by this NDA into a federal investigation, the SEC, all the consequences, all the things that have happened that have made my life so small and isolated, I didn’t start that.”
Janel Grant also criticized a 2024 WWE storyline, saying, “reporters and viewers noticed there were parallels between a storyline that unfolded for several months on television and my situation.” [H/T POST Wrestling]
While she didn’t specify which storyline, people connected it to the Liv Morgan-Dominik Mysterio angle. There was a segment in which Mysterio received what seemed to be some non-PG photos of Morgan on his phone.
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