Former WWE co-president George Barrios has opened up about his decision to reconnect with Vince McMahon and return to the company’s board, addressing what he knew of the allegations against McMahon at the time.
Barrios, who served as WWE’s chief financial officer and later co-president before McMahon fired him in 2020, spoke with POST Wrestling’s John Pollock to promote his new book, “Sometimes Wrong but Never in Doubt: How a Cuban Kid from Queens Transformed WWE.” Part of the conversation covered his and Michelle Wilson’s return to the WWE board as McMahon maneuvered back into the company ahead of its merger with Endeavor to form TKO Group Holdings.
That return came after McMahon resigned in July 2022 following Wall Street Journal reporting on misconduct allegations and hush-money payments, reporting that later fed into Janel Grant’s 2024 lawsuit containing graphic allegations of sex trafficking and sexual abuse. McMahon has denied the allegations.
Barrios said he was aware of the situation but did not dwell on it, telling Pollock that much of what was alleged predated his time at the company. “I’ll be honest, I knew about it. I wasn’t spending my time pouring over things, because everything that was being alleged either happened long before we got there,” Barrios said, adding that a lot of it “had already been out there, so it wasn’t new.”
He described the call in which McMahon asked him and Wilson to return. “I was with the guy for 12 years, and I saw the character he displayed around me. That’s what I have to go on,” Barrios said. “When he said what he said to me on that call, the combination of my experience with him and what I saw and what I knew, I said, ‘Yeah, I’m comfortable.'”
Asked whether he had read the details of Grant’s lawsuit, Barrios said he had, and that he consulted an attorney to better understand the chronology rather than out of any fear of litigation against himself. “I read a lot of stuff. I’m not a lawyer. I did talk to one,” he said. “Did I read it? Yes. Did I get comfortable with it? Yeah. I don’t want to comment on anyone’s particular perspective, but I got comfortable with it.”
Barrios also pushed back on speculation that he returned out of loyalty to McMahon. “I’m not a loyalist to anybody. In fact, I’m somewhat of a disagreeable person,” he said. “Vince and I had an amazing business relationship. It was like high-performing teammates. We weren’t buddies. I wasn’t in there trying to kiss his ass. I’m loyal, but I’m not a loyalist. I don’t do s—- because somebody said, ‘Hey, I need you to do this.’ I do it because I think it’s the right thing to do.”
Grant’s lawsuit, which originally also named former WWE executive John Laurinaitis before he was dropped after agreeing to cooperate, is now headed toward confidential arbitration after Grant, McMahon, and WWE jointly moved in June 2026 to take the case out of the public court system.
