The late Ashley Massaro accused Vince McMahon of preying on female wrestlers

By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)

The late Ashley Massaro accused Vince McMahon of preying on female wrestlers in a statement made to her attorneys prior to her death in 2019. Massaro claimed in statements to lawyers lawyers Konstantine Kyros and Erica Mirabella that McMahon made attempts to get her to come to his hotel room. “I felt extraordinarily uncomfortable,” Massaro said in the statement. “He began calling the hotel room phone and my cell phone nonstop.”

Massaro also that she told Kevin Dunn about the situation and claims that the now former WWE executive told her to tell McMahon that she wasn’t feeling well and would see him at television the next day.

Massaro accused McMahon of writing demeaning scripts for her to perform after she rejected his advances. She claimed that WWE vice president Michael Hayes (Michael Seitz) took issue with the scripted lines and questioned who wrote it. Massaro claimed that when she informed Hayes that McMahon wrote the lines, Hayes told her “Well kid, these are the breaks.” Read more on the story at Vice.com.

Earlier this week, Vice ran another story in which John Laurinaitis’s attorney claimed that upper management was aware that Massaro claimed she was raped in Kuwait while on tour for the company as part the company’s Tribute to the Troops. This contradicted WWE’s previous claim that executives were never made aware of Massaro’s rape allegations. Massaro claimed in a sworn affidavit that she was injected with a paralyzing drug and raped by someone representing himself as a U.S. Army doctor. She also claimed that McMahon and top executives, including Laurinaitis, told her not to talk about the incident to preserve the company’s relationship with the U.S. Military.

Laurinaitis attorney Edward Brennan issued the following statement to Vice regarding the Massaro allegations: “Any allegations that Mr. Laurinaitus [sic] helped to cover up an alleged rape allegation is an outright lie. Johnny, like most upper level management at sometime became aware of the allegations and ensured all proper WWE protocols were followed, including privacy for the alleged victim. We object to the use of the term cover up as no such plan or plot ever took place to hide or assist in the alleged rape.”

Powell’s POV: TKO declined to comment on both Vice stories. WWE previously issued statements denying Massaro informed McMahon and other members of management about the incident in Kuwait, nor met with McMahon, Laurinaitis, or Kevin Dunn regarding it. Obviously, Laurinaitis statement through his attorney runs counter to WWE’s previous claims. On a side note, attorney Konstantine Kyros’s name may seem familiar because he led a class action lawsuit against WWE regarding head trauma suffered by wrestlers. The case was dismissed and the judge ordered Kyros to pay $312,143.55 of WWE’s legal fees. Kyros appealed, but the appeals court agreed with the original decision, adding that many of the lawsuit claims were frivolous or were filed after the statute of limitations had expired.