A recent lawsuit alleges Linda McMahon, who President-elect Donald Trump tapped to lead the Department of Education, knowingly enabled the sexual exploitation of children by a World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) employee as early as the 1980s — allegations she denies.
McMahon is the former CEO of the WWE, which she co-founded with her husband, Vince. As head of the WWE, Linda McMahon oversaw its transformation from a wrestling entertainment company into a publicly traded media empire. She stepped down in 2009 to run for Senate, but she lost in Connecticut in 2010 and 2012.
As McMahon — who co-chairs Trump’s transition team — vies to be confirmed as Education secretary, a recent lawsuit raises questions about her care for children’s safety at the WWE.
The suit alleges McMahon, her husband, the WWE and TKO Group Holdings, the league’s parent company, knowingly allowed employee Melvin Phillips Jr. to use his position as ringside announcer to sexually exploit children.
The filing alleges Phillips would recruit children to work as “Ring Boys,” helping him set up and take down wrestling rings at WWE events. However, the job was a guise for sexually exploiting the children, which Phillips would do even in front of wrestlers and executives in the locker area, the lawsuit alleges. He also would often film his sexual abuse, according to the filing.
The suit was filed in October in Baltimore County, Maryland, on behalf of five John Does, who say they were ages 13 to 15 when Phillips met and recruited them to work as “Ring Boys.” Each of them say they suffered mental and emotional abuse as a result of the alleged abuse.
“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,” the lawsuit alleges. “(The McMahons, WWE and TKO Holdings) allowed Phillips and others to engage in, and foster, the WWE’s rampant culture of sexual abuse.”
The lawsuit claims that the McMahons were negligent as employers and failed to protect the plaintiffs, who are demanding more than $30,000 in damages.
Phillips worked for the WWE in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s as a “prominent ringside announcer and crew chief.” He died in 2012.
Both Linda and Vince McMahon were aware of Phillips’ abuse, the lawsuit alleges. Vince McMahon admitted that he and Linda were aware as early as the early to mid-1980s that Phillips had a “peculiar and unnatural interest” in young boys, according to the filing.
Laura Brevetti, an attorney for Linda McMahon, called the allegations false.
“This civil lawsuit based upon thirty-plus year-old allegations is filled with scurrilous lies, exaggerations and misrepresentations regarding Linda McMahon,” Brevetti said. “Ms. McMahon will vigorously defend against this baseless lawsuit and without doubt ultimately succeed.”
Brevetti also told CNN that Linda and Vince McMahon “are separated” and have been “apart for some time.” Jessica Rosenberg, an attorney for Vince McMahon, did not respond to CNN’s request for comment for this story. Rosenberg said in a previous statement that the lawsuit’s allegations are false.
The WWE did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.
Decades of allegations
Phillips’ alleged abuse at the WWE was reported by the New York Post as early as 1992.
“It was common knowledge in the WWE — among the ring crew, wrestlers, and executives — that Phillips surrounded himself with a posse of underaged Ring Boys, including when he traveled across state lines and stayed in hotel rooms with the children,” the lawsuit alleges.
The McMahons fired Phillips in 1988 after allegations about him sexually exploiting children continued to surface, according to the lawsuit. They “rehired him six weeks later on the condition that he ‘steer clear from kids,’” but he continued sexually exploiting young boys with the McMahons’ knowledge, the lawsuit alleges.
“After decades of suffering in silence from their childhood trauma, these survivors come forward now to hold Defendants accountable for their conduct in allowing the systemic and pervasive abuse by Philips,” the lawsuit alleges.
No one has been criminally charged.
In 2023, the Maryland Child Victims Act, which repeals the statute of limitations in certain child sexual abuse civil lawsuits, became law. The legislation recognizes that “survivors of childhood sexual abuse often wait years before disclosing the abuse to others due to the psychological and emotional trauma,” said Greg Gutzler, a partner at DiCello Levitt, which is representing the plaintiffs along with Murphy, Falcon and Murphy.
Linda McMahon worked in Trump’s first Cabinet as the administrator of the Small Business Administration before stepping down in 2019 to chair a pro-Trump super PAC. She is also a co-founder and the board chair of the America First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump think tank.
Allegations of sex trafficking and abuse have followed Vince McMahon for some time. In 2023, Vince McMahon paid a multimillion-dollar settlement to a former employee who accused him of rape, and he stepped down this year as executive chairman of TK Holdings following allegations of sexual assault and trafficking. He has denied the allegations.
Most recently, Vince McMahon is a subject in a federal criminal investigation and a separate lawsuit in federal court in Connecticut. That lawsuit was put on hold this summer until early December. A criminal investigation around McMahon also exists in New York, though it doesn’t carry legal risk for Linda McMahon, who left the WWE over a decade ago, according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation.
A spokesperson for the US Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York declined to comment. A lawyer for Vince McMahon declined to comment on the criminal probe.
CNN’s Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report
