The work culture of World Wrestling Entertainment has been under scrutiny since Janel Grant filed her lawsuit against former Chairman Vince McMahon. Now more former employees have spoken up about unfair treatment during their time in the company.
Rolling Stone recently published a piece giving insight into the chaotic writer’s room under Vince’s leadership. Several former writers described the day-to-day hardships of working in the challenging environment in detail, including one saying that WWE is a ‘kingdom ruled by fear.’
The women who ended up a part of the mostly male-dominated space say that they became hyper-aware of their gender because of how they were treated. On the condition of anonymity, one former female writer claimed that she was touched inappropriately by her colleagues:
“They would touch me where they would have me come closer [to them], they would pull me by my waist to come somewhere or move closer to them. I’m just super aware that it’s kind of close to my butt and most people don’t touch me by the waist ever. I thought, ‘This is strange.’”
While this behavior was not explicitly sexual, the female employee says that it felt like a means of controlling her in a way that didn’t happen to male writers.
Another former writer revealed that she was fired from her position when she complained to HR. When enough female writers complained about the treatment, a Zoom call was held by the leadership in 2020. While the writers were encouraged to speak on their issues, the leadership was ultimately dismissive of their problems.
The Zoom call was followed by an in-person meeting with the entire writer’s room. The leadership there allegedly told everyone not to go HR if they had any problems in the future and that they were acting like ‘middle schoolers.’
When asked about the allegations made into the Janel Grant lawsuit back in January, WWE’s current head of creative Triple H had told reporters that he didn’t want to get ‘bogged down’ by the negative and focus on the positives instead.
One former writer told Rolling Stone that they don’t believe there will be any major changes in the overall work culture of the company despite the leadership change. They said that there are ‘a lot of people complicit’ in continuing this culture and they don’t have faith that it can be undone overnight.
