WWE founder and CEO Vince McMahon has “voluntarily stepped again” from his positions as chief govt and chairman amid an inside investigation stemming from allegations that he paid $3 million in hush cash to an worker with whom he had an affair.
The investigation has additionally reportedly uncovered a number of older agreements associated to misconduct claims that different feminine WWE staff introduced in opposition to 76-year-old McMahon and John Laurinaitis, WWE’s head of expertise relations.
The Wall Road Journal was the primary to report the allegations.
“McMahon will retain his function and obligations associated to WWE’s inventive content material throughout this era and stays dedicated to co-operating with the assessment underway,” the corporate mentioned.
The investigation is being overseen by a particular committee from throughout the board of administrators.
McMahon’s daughter, Stephanie, will function interim CEO and interim chairwoman, in response to the WWE.
The WWE board came upon about McMahon’s latest $3 million settlement after receiving a collection of nameless emails from somebody claiming to be a good friend of the girl who had an alleged relationship with the WWE chief, in response to the Journal.
The emails reportedly alleged that McMahon employed the girl as a paralegal at a $100,000 wage, then bumped her pay as much as $200,000 after they started a sexual relationship. McMahon additionally “gave her like a toy” to Laurinaitis, the reported emails mentioned.
“My good friend was so scared so she stop after Vince McMahon and lawyer Jerry paid her hundreds of thousands of {dollars} to close up,” the one that despatched the preliminary e-mail reportedly wrote.
The e-mail seems to consult with Jerry McDevitt, who works as McMahon’s lawyer and didn’t reply to a request for remark from the Submit. McDevitt wrote in a letter to the Journal that the ex-paralegal hadn’t accused McMahon of harassment and that “WWE didn’t pay any monies” to the ex-employee “on her departure”.
The board has reportedly discovered that McMahon used his private funds to pay ex-employees who signed the agreements.
McMahon is married to Linda McMahon, who co-founded WWE alongside her husband and served because the administrator of the Small Enterprise Administration beneath President Donald Trump.
This text initially appeared within the New York Submit and was reproduced with permission