Vice News has obtained a previously unreleased statement from Ashley Massaro where she accused former WWE CEO Vince McMahon of predatory behavior.
The statement, given before her 2019 death, states that she was punished for rejecting McMahon by being given bad scripts that would ruin her reputation. Massaro recalled being “extraordinarily uncomfortable” and that McMahon “began calling the hotel room phone and my cell phone nonstop.”
This previously unreleased statement was left out of the affidavit that was published after her death in which she accused McMahon and top executives of a cover-up after she was raped on a military base in Kuwait in 2006. WWE previously denied that they knew about Massaro being raped but an attorney for John Laurinaitis confirmed that Laurinaitis and McMahon knew.
Also in the previously unreleased statement, Massaro says that she saw McMahon “making out” with female wrestlers in the locker room and that she was sexually harassed. Massaro said that the demeaning scripts were meant to destroy her reputation and this previously happened to another female wrestler before she left WWE. The name of the wrestler was not mentioned in the Vice story out of respect for her privacy.
Here is the previously unreleased statement from Massaro:
“During my time with the WWE, I had observed Vince McMahon making-out with other divas in the locker room, but he never paid attention to me, and I assumed I was not his type. This changed after my Playboy cover was released. I was fortunate enough to be allowed to fly on the company jet and stay at the same hotels as the executives for a period of time so that I could get home faster to spend more time with my daughter. On one of these occasions, Vince was attempting to get me alone with him in his hotel room late at night and I felt extraordinarily uncomfortable. He began calling the hotel room phone and my cell phone nonstop. I called Kevin Dunn to explain the situation and he said I should tell Vince I was not feeling well and would see him on TV the next day, so I did. Immediately after that night, Vince started writing my promos for me. Vince does not write promos for female wrestlers—that is the job of the creative department—and he certainly wouldn’t have, under any normal circumstances, written a promo for me. But he did, and the promos were written with the clear intention of ruining my career. I brought the first script Vince wrote for me to the WWE employee in charge of Creative at the time, Michael Hayes, and he said, ‘you’re not saying this, who the [expletive] wrote this?’ and I told him that Vince did. He said, ‘Well kid, these are the breaks,’ meaning that Vince wanted to end my career and destroy my reputation on my way out. He is known for this type of behavior and also did this to [REDACTED] upon her departure from WWE. In addition, after that night, each time I walk by him he would make vulgar sexual comments that were clearly designed to make me uncomfortable.”
