A group of five John Does is suing Vince McMahon, alleging that the former WWE boss knew about the serial abuse of underage boys by an employee and did nothing to stop it.
Filed in Baltimore County Circuit Court on Wednesday, the lawsuit says McMahon and his wife, Linda; World Wrestling Entertainment; and WWE parent company TKO Group were all aware that the late ringside announcer Melvin Phillips Jr. was sexually assaulting the kids he hired as “Ring Boys” between the 1970s and 1990s.
In a statement, McMahon’s attorney, Jessica Rosenberg, called the claims “absurd, defamatory, and utterly meritless.”
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“We will vigorously defend Mr. McMahon and are confident the court will find that these claims are untrue and unfounded,” she added.
The Daily Beast has contacted WWE and TKO for comment.
Ring Boys were effectively assistants to the ring crew, and according to the lawsuit, Phillips “targeted young boys from broken homes,” leveraging his position to “groom and abuse” children as young as 12.
Phillips, who died in 2012, would travel with “a posse of underaged Ring Boys,” the filing states, bringing them with him to WWE events and sometimes obligating them to share his hotel rooms. Abuse allegedly occurred in his private dressing room as well, with the suit alleging that he filmed his “sexual escapades with the children” on a personal video camera.
What’s more, the suit contends, Phillips operated more or less out in the open: Everyone, from the wrestlers to the crew to WWE executives, allegedly knew what was going on. The suit quotes McMahon as acknowledging, in the 1980s, that Phillips had a “peculiar and unnatural interest” in young boys, which allegedly led to his firing in 1988. After just six weeks, the filing says, the McMahons brought him back with the proviso that he “steer clear from kids.”
“He did not, and they knew it,” the suit continues, pointing to subsequent reporting on Phillips’ alleged predilection and even an FBI investigation into the matter.
Phillips’ alleged misconduct has been a known quantity for years, but lawyers for the John Does say they only realized just how much the defendants knew about it after Janel Grant, an ex-WWE employee, sued McMahon earlier this year. Grant alleges that McMahon coerced her into a sexual relationship in exchange for a job, and “expected and directed” her “to engage in sexual activity at the WWE headquarters” with himself and with other men.
McMahon denied the allegations but resigned his executive chairmanship. He had only reclaimed it early last year, after a 2022 federal investigation into his multimillion-dollar payments to settle sexual misconduct claims prompted his resignation. The government is investigating the sex-trafficking allegations, while Netflix just put out a docuseries on his life and alleged transgressions.
As for the Ring Boys’ case, Greg Gutzler of DiCello Levitt, the firm bringing the suit, told NBC News: “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.”
