Last September, Netflix released a six-episode docuseries chronicling the life of Vince McMahon and the evolution of WWE. While the series offered a comprehensive look at McMahon’s rise to power, industry influence, and WWE’s cultural impact, the final episode took a darker turn—focusing on McMahon’s departure in the wake of the 2022 hush money scandal and the 2024 lawsuit filed by former WWE employee Janel Grant. The suit alleges sexual assault and sex trafficking by McMahon and accuses WWE and John Laurinaitis of complicity.
WWE President Nick Khan addressed the documentary and its fallout while speaking with the series’ producer, Bill Simmons, on The Bill Simmons Podcast. Here are some of the highlights from their conversation:
On the project: “A lot. By the way, it’s a testament to you, it’s a testament to Netflix to get that done, obviously in getting it done, the latter part, which you just referenced, was quite bumpy for everybody, but it got done, and it seemed to get quite high viewership numbers on Netflix.”
On the internal reaction: “Episodes one through five, it was all fine. Episode six obviously had a lot of tawdry allegations in there. The most important thing in the company was, ‘Hey, this is not for us to spike it.’ That’s not what the deal was, and the deal that was struck with Netflix was prior to me joining WWE on a full-time basis. So it was sort of trying to help everyone who was watching it stay calm, and ‘we’ll get through this thing and get to the other side of it,’ which hopefully we are now.”
On the feedback to it: “It went everywhere from ‘Hey, it was phenomenally done’ to ‘Oh my God, this thing is not true, it’s not factual.’ There were people who loved it as an objectively told profile of a person, and people who were close to the subject who didn’t like it, which I would understand, and I would think you understand.”
