Six Former WWE Employees Claim Vince McMahon Inspired an Environment of Bullying and Sexism

Rolling Stone has posted a new piece that features six former WWE creative team writers who commented on what Vince McMahon’s behavior was like during their time working closely with the now-disgraced former WWE Chairman.

Several of the writers claim McMahon created a culture of “bullying, fear and sexism.”

Michael Leonardi on McMahon getting angry over him removing a racially insensitive line from a script: “He turned to me and he said, ‘So you didn’t give me what I wanted?’ I said, ‘I understand, I’m sorry. We all went over it and felt good about it, we just made the small tweak.’ And then he started just yelling at me. It was such an intense moment. I walked out with my tail between my legs. The script called for Neville to speak up and tell everyone else that he’s ‘got a dream too, and that dream is to win the Royal Rumble.”

Former writer on the atmosphere of the writing room: “Everybody was getting yelled at all the time in the room. It was more saying shit that was humiliating or mean [that was then] couched as a joke, but it’s a nasty joke. If you’re being targeted in the room, nobody stands up for you, but that’s because if they do, they will get the bullet in the head, too. You don’t stick your head up out of the foxhole for anybody, because nobody wants to take a bullet.”

Another former writer on McMahon changing scripts at the last minute: “It doesn’t really matter what he said in that creative room or if he loved it [at an earlier point], it was still going to get torn up before the show. By the time Monday rolled around and we were all in the production meeting, something else was gonna happen. It almost felt like a joke, like we were just there to satisfy Vince’s whims. We were all Vince McMahon transcribers. I think Vince enjoyed the manipulation. He liked changing things. He liked keeping people on their toes. I genuinely felt like, this isn’t to benefit the show or the storyline, Vince really just enjoys making people squirm.”

On other writers also causing problems: “Those people were the most miserable people I’ve ever worked with, but that’s where a lot of them had worked their whole professional lives and that’s the only game in town. They didn’t know what it was like working on a regular television show.”

A female writer on the sexism in the writers room: “They would touch me where they would have me come closer [to them]. They would pull me by my waist to come somewhere or move closer to them. I’m just super aware that it’s kind of close to my butt and most people don’t touch me by the waist ever. I thought, ‘This is strange.’”

On how Vince’s absence improved the atmosphere: “When Vince wasn’t there, it was amazing to see how things opened up. People start talking, the creativity [flows]. It’s just so clear how much his influence and the way he ran things would actually stifle the process.”

Several other complaints mentioned McMahon demanding everyone to stand up when he entered the room. McMahon would also reportedly leave them waiting “for hours” and “you wouldn’t know why you were waiting.” They claimed that many of the meetings wouldn’t start until midnight and wouldn’t end until 2-4 AM.

For what it’s worth, a spokesperson for McMahon issued the following statement on the piece:

“Scores of writers could share tales of what an enjoyable, creative and freewheeling environment the WWE writers rooms were. This handful of (obviously disgruntled) individuals aren’t representative in any way of the consensus — or of the truth. Many of the anonymous writers’ claims bear no resemblance to the reality of the writers room. Vince never told people to stand up when he entered the room. That’s ludicrous. Like many jobs in the sports and entertainment industries, the writer’s position was not a 9-to-5 gig. If new ideas needed to be implemented or changes made to the script, meetings could be held late into the evening because of Vince’s availability given his travel schedule and his multiple duties at the company as CEO as well as overseeing all of the creative content for hundreds of live events and broadcasts every year.”