Vince McMahon steps back as WWE CEO amid investigation into alleged hush money payment

McMahon to give up CEO and chairman responsibilities during investigation but will continue to carry out his duties relating to WWE’s creative content

Vince McMahon is stepping back from his role as chairman and CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) amid an investigation into the allegation that he paid $3m to a departing employee with whom he allegedly had an affair.

The company said on Friday that Mr McMahon is leaving the role while the company board investigates the supposed misconduct.

The board is reportedly investigating Mr McMahon over multi-million-dollar payouts he allegedly made to a paralegal at the company, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Mr McMahon will give up his responsibilities as CEO and chairman during the course of the investigation but will continue to carry out his duties relating to WWE’s creative content, The Journal reported on Friday.

The board appointed Mr McMahon’s daughter Stephanie McMahon Levesque as interim CEO. Last month, she left her role as WWE’s chief brand officer. She wrote on LinkedIn that she was “taking this time to focus on my family” but added that she was planning on returning to the company.

The Journal, which cited documents and interviews with anonymous sources familiar with the matter, reported on Wednesday that the billionaire wrestling magnate reached a non-disclosure agreement with the woman in January, which precludes her from discussing the intimate matters of their relationship or airing critical statements about the 76-year-old CEO.

Mr McMahon, who bought his father’s World Wrestling Federation, later rebranded as WWE, in 1982 transformed the once regional operation into a global wrestling entertainment powerhouse alongside his wife, Linda McMahon. The company went public in 1999 and now rakes in $1bn in annual revenue, while the CEO himself is estimated to be worth $2.4bn by Forbes.

The board reportedly began their investigation into the chief executive’s settlements in April, according to the Journal. Mr McMahon, who remains the majority shareholder of the company, also has family members on the board, including his daughter, herself a retired professional wrestler, and her husband, Paul “TripleH” Levesque, also retired from a life inside the WWE ring.

The female employee, who allegedly received $3m in payouts from the wrestling company’s chief executive, was reportedly involved in a consensual relationship with him. She was paid off, according to the WSJ, through Mr McMahon’s personal funds.

The separation agreement was reportedly struck in January of this year and prohibits the paralegal, who was hired in 2019, from speaking about Mr McMahon.

Mr McMahon said in WWE’s Friday press release that he would “do everything possible to support” the probe.

While the inquiry was initially looking into the payment to the former paralegal, it has reportedly also uncovered older misconduct claims made by other women against Mr McMahon and one of the board’s former top executives, John Laurinaitis.

Mr Laurinaitis, who used to head up talent relations at WWE, is perhaps better known by his ring name, Johnny Ace, as before taking a seat in the corporate boardrooms of the wrestling world, he, too, was a professional wrestler.

The report from the Wall Street Journal said they were unable to put an exact figure on the settlements but noted that the sum was millions of dollars.

All the settlements, the board believes, according to the WSJ, came from Mr McMahon’s personal funds.

A spokesperson for the WWE told the newspaper that all members of the company are cooperating with the investigation, which is being handled by Simpon Thacher & Bartlett LLP, a New York-based law firm.

This isn’t the first time that Mr McMahon has come under a critical spotlight.

In April 2020, while the rampant spread of Covid-19 forced many public venues to close their doors, the WWE resumed airing live matches after being deemed an “essential service” in Florida. The fights were broadcast, albeit without a ringside audience.

At the time, some speculated whether the reprieve had come from Mr McMahon’s wife’s job: the chair of the pro-Trump America First Action super PAC. On the day that Florida deemed that WWE was considered an essential business, the super PAC committed to spending $18.5m in the state.

In response to those speculations, a spokesperson for America First Action told ABC News at the time that suggesting such a connection was a symptom of “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and an example of “looking to connect some sort of dots that simply don’t exist”. The spokesperson also informed the news outlet that the $18m Florida ad buy had been earmarked a week before the executive order was changed to allow the WWE to continue operations.

Ms McMahon, herself a WWE Hall of Famer, also served in the Trump administration as the Small Business Administration chief.