World Wrestling Entertainment founder Vince McMahon and his wife, Linda, are accused of knowingly allowing the grooming, exploitation and sexual abuse of young boys throughout the 1980s and ’90s, according to a new lawsuit filed on behalf of five alleged victims.
According to the suit, the former CEO of WWE and his wife were aware that the organization’s prominent ringside announcer, Mel Phillips, used his “highly visible position” as a ring crew chief to hire boys as young as 12 to assist with errands in preparation for WWE’s wrestling shows.
They also knew that Phillips’ “real motivation” in hiring the boys “was to sexually assault them,” the 82-page complaint alleges.
Those young assistants, who became known as “ring boys,” were “groomed, exploited and sexually abused by Phillips, who targeted children from broken homes,” according to the law firms DiCello Levitt and Murphy, Falcon & Murphy, which are representing five men who claimed they were abused by Phillips.
“Thanks to the bravery of our clients, we finally have a chance to hold accountable those who allowed and enabled the open, rampant sexual abuse of these young boys,” lead attorney Greg Gutzler said in a statement. “That so many were aware of the sexual abuse of the Ring Boys and did nothing to prevent or stop it is simply unconscionable.”
Phillips, who died in 2012, is accused of sexually abusing the ring boys in wrestling venues, hotel rooms and other locations where the announcer would “shuttle the boys in plain sight.”
“At some venues, defendants even provided Phillips with his own private dressing room where he would use his own expensive video camera (extremely rare at that time) to film his sexual escapades with the children,” the lawsuit alleges, also naming WWE and its parent company TKO Holdings as defendants.
The bombshell suit, filed in Baltimore County on Wednesday, is the latest scandal involving the sports entertainment giant described as “the most important man in the history of World Wrestling Entertainment.”
In January, McMahon resigned from his roles at parent company TKO after a former WWE employee accused him of sexual misconduct.
Janel Grant, who served in WWE’s legal and talent departments, said she was required to maintain a sexual relationship with McMahon and submit to his “sexual demands” — which allegedly involved acts of “extreme cruelty and degradation” — in return for employment.
McMahon has vehemently denied the “baseless accusations” alleged in the complaint, calling them “obscene made-up instances that never occurred.”
A six-part documentary series about WWE’s “record-breaking highs and crushing lows” under McMahon’s leadership premiered on Netflix last month.
