Five former “Ring Boys” alleged WWE co-founder Vince McMahon and his wife, Linda McMahon, “knowingly allowed” a ringside announcer/ring crew chief to sexually abuse them decades ago, according to a lawsuit filed on Wednesday.
The ring crew chief, Melvin Phillips Jr., would hire underaged boys to help set up WWE events where they were “groomed, exploited, and sexually abused,” according to allegations in the lawsuit that date back to the 1980s. Phillips died in 2012 and, as such, is not a defendant in the lawsuit filed in Maryland. WWE, Vince and Linda McMahon and TKO Group, WWE’s parent company, are listed as defendants in the civil complaint.
“The WWE and McMahons had a responsibility to these underaged boys, and they failed them in the worst way possible,” Mark DiCello, founding partner of the firm DiCello Levitt representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement. “We will vigorously fight to uncover the truth about this systemic, insidious, and life-altering abuse.”
The Ring Boy scandal was first reported by Alex Marvez of the Miami Herald in 1992 as the FBI investigated claims of sexual abuse of minors. While the lawsuit states that the FBI identified at least 10 victims, no criminal charges were filed.
The lawsuit alleges that Phillips “lured and manipulated the young boys with promises of meeting famous wrestlers and attending the highly popular wrestling shows, experiences that were otherwise unattainable for these kids.”
McMahon resigned as executive chairman of TKO Group and gave up his spot on the company’s executive board in January amid an ongoing federal probe that includes allegations McMahon paid four women millions of dollars to conceal his sexual misconduct. Janel Grant, one of those women, claimed in a lawsuit that McMahon sexually assaulted her and shared her nude photos with Brock Lesnar in a bid to re-sign the WWE star.
Ann Callis, one of Grant’s attorneys, called the allegations in Wednesday’s lawsuit “deeply troubling.”
“Vince McMahon made sexual abuse and human trafficking a hallmark of WWE’s culture for decades,” Callis said in a statement. “Survivors like Janel Grant and other former WWE employees deserve their day in court.”
Messages left with WWE and TKO representatives by FOS were not immediately returned.
