Ex-WWE board member who led WWE’s Vince McMahon investigation defends their efforts

In 2022, reporting on Vince McMahon’s NDA with the woman we now know to be Janel Grant instigated the WWE Board’s investigation into payments the company’s then-Chairman made to women with whom he had sexual relations, or who had accused him of sexual misconduct.

Among the many allegations made the bombshell sex trafficking lawsuit against McMahon and WWE that Grant and her legal team filed yesterday (Jan. 25) was that investigators never contacted Grant in the course of their work. Calling the investigation a “sham”, the suit claims the Board only focused on the hush money and not the behavior that money was supposed to keep under wraps.

In their reporting on Grant’s case, The New York Times contacted the person who headed the WWE Board’s investigation. Jeff Speed, who was removed from the Board when McMahon forced his way back into the company last January, defended the investigation as thorough.

“I remain confident in our investigation which included outreach to Ms. Grant and engagement with her lawyer,” Mr. Speed said in an email sent Thursday by Simpson Thacher & Bartlett L.L.P., the law firm hired to represent the committee.

Mr. Speed, who left the W.W.E. board in 2023, added that he recognized “the horrific nature of the allegations” in the lawsuit but that he was “not at liberty to comment on what was and was not learned during our investigation.”

Grant’s attorneys have not commented on Speed’s statement as of this writing. McMahon has called her suit “replete with lies” and vowed to defend himself. His employers at TKO, WWE’s new parent company, say they’re addressing the matter internally.