Gail Kim

Gail Kim has always been outspoken regarding her feelings towards Vince McMahon. Kim had several issues with McMahon, yet one of her fundamental issues with the former WWE Chairman came down to his lack of understanding of diversity in pro wrestling.

Speaking on Wrestling With Stereotypes, this is what Kim had to say:

"I’m a firm believer that you’re a product of how you were raised the majority of the time, and I think that Vince just doesn’t get it. I’ve heard many times that one of his biggest heroes is Martin Luther King Jr. I’ve heard this from a few people and it’s a known fact, but it still makes me scratch my head in a sense that if he truly believes that, it’s almost ignorance of not knowing that you’re—I think in their minds they may think, ‘Oh, if I hire ethnic people, that makes not racist.’ It’s like that person saying ‘I have a black best friend, so I’m good’, right?"

Kim during both of her WWE runs took exception to how the women were treated, and when she left WWE in 2011, she eliminated herself from a battle royal to prove a point. Kim wanted to see if anyone noticed backstage, and in doing this stunt, she brought widespread attention to the fact that WWE, specifically Vince McMahon, had no interest in booking a competent, legitimate women’s division.

Francine

Over the past few years, numerous harrowing stories regarding Vince McMahon have surfaced, and it’s easy to work out why women may have been uncomfortable around him.

Appearing on the Eyes Up Here podcast, Francine of ECW fame discussed working for Vince McMahon during the Ruthless Aggression Era, and she didn’t have a positive experience:

“…I was told by somebody higher up, if you want to, you know, be seen, you need to go get a bottle of oil. I mean, I don’t know if I was supposed to be cooking oil. What kind of oil? I don’t know. Rubbing oil all over my b**bs and knocking on Vince’s door and going in there and leaning on his desk and trying to get noticed. That’s what I was told to do, and I said, absolutely not, I’m not doing that…”

Whilst it’s good that the ECW legend stood her ground, nobody under any circumstances should be put in a position to do something they’re uncomfortable with, especially when it comes to nudity.

Ashley Massaro

Following her tragic passing, disturbing details surfaced regarding Ashley Massaro, and her thoughts and feelings towards her former boss, Vince McMahon.

Prior to her untimely passing in 2019, Massaro provided a series of statements to lawyers that were later translated into a sworn affidavit. In early 2024, VICE News released one of Massaro's unpublished statements. In one of the statements, Massaro accused McMahon of preying on female WWE talent, and she said she was punished for rejecting McMahon’s inappropriate advances.

Massaro would claim that when her Playboy cover was released, McMahon attempted to get her alone in his hotel room. Massaro implies that McMahon harassed her by constantly calling her hotel room phone as well as her cell phone. Massaro reached out to Kevin Dunn, who advised her to tell McMahon directly that she was feeling unwell. In the months following this ordeal, McMahon began personally writing promos scripts for her, promos that according to Massaro were written with the intention of destroying her career.

Sable

When Sable returned to WWE in 2003, it came as a huge surprise. Sable had departed the company back in 1999, and she left in controversial circumstances, and she even sued the company for sexual harassment.

She would claim that she was pressured to compete in inappropriate storylines, and she was asked to wrestle topless against Debra on RAW.

While speaking during a virtual signing with Golden Ring Collectibles, 2 Cold Scorpio stated that McMahon openly expressed his personal desires to have a sexual encounter with Sable. Sable was married to fellow WWE star, Marc Mero at the time, yet this didn’t deter McMahon from making his voice heard.

Upon returning to WWE in 2003, bizarrely, Sable would take on the role of McMahon’s personal Mistress. It didn’t take a genius to realise that this was McMahon acting out a sick fantasy on screen.

Sable would depart the company the following year, and fans have often assumed that Sable was uncomfortable in her role, and it wouldn’t have helped that her boyfriend at the time, Brock Lesnar had exited the company on terrible terms.

Sable has been extremely private over the past two-decades, so she’s never spoken out publicly regarding her time in WWE. However, it’s easy to see why her WWE runs, especially her second stint, may have led to significant personal trauma.

Nikki Bella

On the surface, it looked like Nikki Bella had a healthy relationship with Vince McMahon. However, in 2023, Nikki reflected on a time that McMahon screamed at her for the most nonsensical reason imaginable.

Appearing on The Sessions, Nikki discussed McMahon’s obsession with control, and when Total Divas became a smash hit across the world, McMahon believed he had lost some control:

“As far as the boss, I felt like it was the first time he lost control of what he could make or not make. When Brie and I won Diva of the Year, we got in trouble. I got yelled at. I remember, we came back so happy, and he was like: ‘oh, because you brought in all these new viewers, and the women are now voting for you, and all these new women are here!'”

Nikki went on to state that she was baffled at McMahon’s reasoning for yelling at her:

“On the floor. Everyone around was on the floor, like… the Bella twins are getting yelled at for being successful. Because it wasn’t what they wanted. They were the storytellers. They push who they want the crowd to be behind. Perception is reality. That is WWE to a tee. Even though the fans think they own it? No, they [WWE] laugh in the back, you know, ‘we own you at the end of the day.’”

Stephanie McMahon

It’s well documented that Stephanie McMahon had a somewhat positive relationship with Vince McMahon outside of WWE; however, when it came to their working relationship, the two often butted heads.

Fans have theorised over the years that due to Stephanie being so beloved by the locker room, this rubbed Vince McMahon the wrong way, and subsequently created natural friction.

Vince also had bizarre ideas for storylines involving his daughter that made her extremely uncomfortable. These included storylines where the two wrestled in a match, and even a rejected angle where Vince would be revealed as the father of Stephanie’s child.

Stephanie also retired from WWE in 2023, and a report in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter states that her working relationship with her dad was a factor:

“That doesn’t explain why this was a resignation and she left the board and cut all ties with the company she has worked for since she was a teenager. It was also conceded that she and Vince did have issues in working together as family members and how Khan was a buffer who kept things smooth between them as well as between Vince and Levesque.”

When Vince was firmly out of the picture in regard to WWE, Stephanie magically re-surfaced, and this wasn’t a coincidence, and it’s widely believed that Stephanie loathed working with her father so much that she had no choice but to exit the company, and cut ties with her father when it comes to all aspects of WWE’s business.   

Ronda Rousey

Upon leaving WWE in 2023, Ronda Rousey didn’t hold back on her thoughts on WWE, and her experience working with Vince McMahon.

Rousey had a scathing opinion of McMahon, and she came to the conclusion from working closely with McMahon that he was “evil”.

“It's hard sometimes to know where the evil, unethical, slimeball character of Vince McMahon played out for the cameras ends and the actual questionably ethical, many times sued, and multiple times accused of sexual misconduct Vince McMahon begins...”

This quote surfaced from Rousey’s autobiography, and when asked about her comments directed towards McMahon, Rousey didn’t double down.

The former WWE Women’s Champion was also asked about the serious allegations other women have directed towards McMahon, and this is what Rousey had to say during an interview with NewsNation:

"It's not surprising. I can tell you the reason why nobody else is speaking out is because they know that there will be negative repercussions if they say anything about the company that the company doesn't like. Everybody is being held hostage by their careers, but since I don't plan on going back there unless they make some very major changes, I feel free to say whatever I want to say, which I've always felt that way. I don't really care if they have me back or not. I can wrestle wherever I want to wrestle and the truth should be told..”

Lita

Lita is one of the greatest, and most popular female talents in WWE history. Whilst Lita was featured in a prominent role for the majority of her career, this doesn’t mean that she had a favourable stance on working with Vince McMahon.

During a 2021 Twitch stream, the WWE Hall of Famer revealed that when she had reservations about taking part in the infamous 2006 live sex celebration with Edge, Vince McMahon threatened to fire her if she didn’t see it through. Knowing details of the McMahon lawsuit, this is extremely distressing to hear, and it’s horrific to think that Lita was forced to perform such an inappropriate act on live TV.

In the months following Lita’s act of defiance, the way she would be treated on TV would be different, and when she retired at the Survivor Series in 2006, she was utterly embarrassed by the company in a backwards segment that has aged like milk.

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