On the heels of a bombshell story published in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week, Vince McMahon has tendered his resignation from TKO Group Holdings, the parent company of WWE. The news was announced by Nick Khan, WWE’s president and a member of TKO’s Board of Directors.
“I wanted to inform you that Vince McMahon has tendered his resignation from his positions as TKO Executive Chairman and on the TKO Board of Directors,” Khan said in an email obtained by Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful. “He will no longer have a role with TKO Group Holdings or WWE.”
The news of McMahon’s resignation was confirmed by Variety.
This is not the first time that McMahon has left WWE amid controversy, as he previously retired in July of 2022 while he was being investigated for misconduct. That did not stick, however, as reports later that year indicated that McMahon was planning a comeback, and at the beginning of 2023, he rejoined the company‘s board of directors. This beget a highly-publicized sale to Endeavor in April of last year and the creation of TKO, where McMahon served as the executive chairman.
But on Thursday, the Wall Street Journal published a damning article titled “Vince McMahon Accused of Sex Trafficking by WWE Staffer He Paid to Keep Quiet.” You can read the full piece here, but it led to a firestorm that brought McMahon’s future in the company into question, and in a statement via a spokesperson, McMahon responded to the story by denying the allegations and saying that he plans on defending himself. He repeated these sentiments while explaining his decision to resign.
Vince McMahon’s statement to @DEADLINE:
“I stand by my prior statement that Ms. Grant’s lawsuit is replete with lies, obscene made-up instances that never occurred, and is a vindictive distortion of the truth. I intend to vigorously defend myself against these baseless…
— Wrestling News (@WrestlingNewsCo) January 27, 2024
The news of McMahon’s resignation comes hours after Slim Jim decided to “pause our promotional activities with WWE.”