The Vince McMahon allegations are about to get even more media coverage.
The Wall Street Journal reported on June 15th that WWE billionaire Vince McMahon was involved in paying “hush money” to a former employee with whom he’d had an affair. The Journal updated the story on July 8th, adding that the 76-year-old paid $12 million over the past 16 years to quieten allegations of sexual misconduct.
Since the reports, McMahon has voluntarily stepped down as CEO. While the company has seemingly taken a “business as usual” approach to deal with the situation, there may be more stories coming that could put them and their former CEO in a negative light.
According to Mike Johnson from PW Insider, HBO is preparing to run a story regarding the recent McMahon allegations and has reached out to former company employees. The story will be covered by HBO Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, which airs news episodes on HBO Max and the HBO channel. The report also noted that another article from the Wall Street Journal is expected to drop within the next few weeks.
ESPN recently announced that it would honour WWE as a Sports Humanitarian League Champion for their community work. Warrior award recipient and finalist for the Muhammad Ali Sports Humanitarian Award, Titus O’Neil opened this week’s Raw and spoke about the company’s humanitarian efforts.
Despite major news outlets covering the situation, the company has remained silent on the allegations after their initial PR statement that was sent out regarding McMahon’s decision to step down.
McMahon has appeared on a handful of episodes of programming since the allegations came to light. It was reported that McMahon appeared jovial backstage and refused to comment on the situation.
After McMahon stepped down from the role, his daughter Stephanie McMahon took over responsibilities as CEO.