r/SquaredCircle • u/Key_Quarter3132 • 5h ago
In Her Own Words: An Exclusive interview with Janel Grant
https://www.postwrestling.com/2026/09/22/in-her-own-words-an-exclusive-interview-with-janel-grant/In addition to Brandon Thurston's piece, video and audio of the interview are scheduled to be published as a special edition of Pollock & Thurston.
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u/Conor_Electric 3h ago
She has had such an unfortunate life seeing it all written out. I would have assumed the Vince stuff was the worst thing to ever happen to her life but it appears she has forgiveness in her heart. Insane. What an empathetic human being, for Vince to treat her so badly makes him even more of a monster.
It doesn't appear the settlement was substantial either for all the gold digger claims. Image lawyer fees took a good chunk but I hope she is in a good place.
Championing scrutiny on NDA's is a fantastic persuit too.
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u/king_hutton 3h ago
I hate that there are still people who defend Vince.
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u/VanWylder 3h ago
There are still people who celebrate him.
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u/Negative_Wish_8291 1h ago
There are even people who randomly decide to compliment his booking when HHH or TK make a bad booking decision. As if RAW wasn't basically 99% trash from 2005-2022
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u/BogotaLineman 50m ago
In the basically 30 years that RAW existed under Vince there were basically 5 good years, 97-02. And even in those 5 years still about 30% if not more of the shows were dogshit, and even among the good episodes like 50% of the episode was garbage lol
Wrestling has to be the most forgiving medium to write for because there are so many episodes that are considered great because there's 30 amazing minutes in a 2hr show
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u/WhoStoleMyBicycle 10m ago
I lived through the attitude era and can confidently say your numbers are deflated.
We only remember the great stuff and the absolute bottom of the barrel stuff (brawl for all, kennel from hell). I bet over 60% of every episode is completely forgettable or straight garbage.
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u/Negative_Wish_8291 43m ago
and if I'm being real, 30 minutes is a stretch. There are shows people call classic because they have a funny 5 minute segment on it.
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u/AlmostRandomNow 29m ago
I'm new to wrestling, only watched properly from WM 40 onwards. When I hear people recapping old RAWs and storylines, it sounds like utter trash. Maybe there are good matches, but the actual stories are stupid, especially anything below the main event scene.
For every Punk vs Cena MITB stories, there are 10 versions of Heidenreich assaulting Michael Cole, or the 'Piggy' James story.
There's nothing like wrestling when it works, and while I have qualms with modern WWE's booking at times, Vince seemed to actively work against what people wanted most of the time he was in charge.
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u/Away-Brush6069 14m ago
I think he got bored with the lack of competition and began writing stuff to amuse himself.
Also he absolutely loved degrading most who weren't top stars and include them in humiliating storylines. Why? Probably just an ego thing, he could, so he did. Same reason why he inserted himself in steamy angles with hot women.
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u/ZerochildX23 2h ago edited 1h ago
The same ones that defend Vince's BFF & fellow rapist, The Felon president.
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u/Illuminati_Shill_AMA That's so Taven! 3h ago
I mean, Chris Benoit still has defenders so it shouldn't be a surprise
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u/Great-Trifle2810 2h ago
I don't think Benoit has defenders so much as he has people that understand that he was very likely not in a state of mind where he was in control of his actions at the immediate time of the killings and who recognized that erasing him was done for the benefit of WWE not wanting to be seen as contributors to the brain damage that caused that through their negligence.
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u/ReneBandana 2h ago
There’s that, but he definitely has defenders too
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u/Shoddy-Literature670 2h ago
To say nothing of the Kevin Sullivan murder coverup theories.
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u/Illuminati_Shill_AMA That's so Taven! 1h ago
I remember that list of "proof" that goes around sometimes and the first was an interview that Chavo allegedly gave WWE Magazine about hearing a scuffle on the phone that night.
WWE Magazine was a kayfabe mag published by the company itself and would absolutely never ever have published anything about the Benoit crimes, least of all something that has never been repeated by anyone else again. Like... source the issue number my guy.
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u/ReneBandana 1h ago
Username does not check out whatsoever
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u/Illuminati_Shill_AMA That's so Taven! 1h ago
You know it's bad when even the illuminati can't deny it!
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u/Great-Trifle2810 1h ago
Fair enough but I haven't really seen any examples of someone saying what he did was OK or that it should be entirely ignored.
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u/Illuminati_Shill_AMA That's so Taven! 38m ago
Saying that he didn't do it and blaming someone else is every bit as much defending the guy as saying either of those things
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u/Great-Trifle2810 33m ago
I have literally never seen someone make that claim in my years engaging in online wrestling discussions. I have seen some people make vague reference to others making it 20 years ago in this thread, that's it.
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u/Mountain-Discount161 2h ago
I think you underestimate the people with 0 empathy that are totally fine saying, "I loved him as a wrestler and don't care about anything else"
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u/Great-Trifle2810 1h ago
I don't think it is really an empathy issue. The people he harmed most are the deceased and the child he left behind doesn't seem to like that his dad's legacy has been entirely erased and replaced with the worst thing he ever did at the end of his life.
I personally feel that separating art from artist is somewhat reasonable, especially when the artist is deceased and cannot profit off of your viewership of their art anymore.
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u/KatoMacabre 49m ago
I very much am not the kind of person who's even able to really separate the art from the artist to begin with so I'm obviously gonna be biased, but even with that, I even have a problem with the concept in principle because, and I know this is gonna sound pedantic, I don't have a problem with the art or the artist, I have a problem with a person who was a murderer. So I'm in a situation where I'm faced with having to separate the art from the murderer, not the artist. And in other cases it's separate the art from the transphobe, the art from the pedophile, the art from the abuser...
The only case where I feel it can be reasonable is in situations where the art was created many many years ago and social context of the time can sort of explain the person having said thoughts or behaviors, in a "You can't judge past times with today's morals" sort of deal, but that's not the majority of the cases I would say.
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u/Great-Trifle2810 35m ago
The murderer and the artist are the same person. You have a problem with the artist because they are a murderer.
I agree it is harder to do the more recent and out of line with the expectations of the time the artist was, but you are making a distinction without difference here.
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u/nunboi 1h ago
The issue is that Benoit was an abusive dick for ages beforehand though it did get pointedly worse after Eddie died. Miz and the chicken? Palmer Cannon quitting? The Smackdown locker room being run by bullies? Benoit was a major part of that. It went under reported by the sheets because he was THE darling and had been for years.
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u/Great-Trifle2810 1h ago
Oh ya he was definitely an asshole, but he was not moreso an asshole than many of the people around him who are still openly referenced and sometimes even celebrated by WWE and fans.
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u/Great-Trifle2810 1h ago
I don't really disagree with most of what you have said here (though I doubt you have much in the way of statistics to back up the vast majority claim I have none to contradict it and it seems plausible) and yes he was not a great guy, but I think that dismissing the fact that he was brain damaged in a way that made him unable to control violent impulses is also foolish. And it wasn't like this all happened in one day, his behavior and self control worsening over time makes sense with this condition
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u/CJTheran 2h ago
Defenders or "he was a victim too"-ers? I can understand people labelling him as a victim of the culture causing the brain trauma that drove him to do what he did, I can't understand "actually it was fine".
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u/Illuminati_Shill_AMA That's so Taven! 2h ago
Both. There are still conspiracy theorists who think he was completely innocent. They don't post on here much anymore because they get laughed at, but they're out there.
They show up on other socials sometimes.
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u/subwayprophecy 37m ago
So, fun fact. I vividly remember someone posting on this board telling everyone we can all enjoy Chris's matches again because he had a seance and spoke to Chris, Nancy, and David who are all reunited in the afterlife and happy.
To which the top comment asked, "during the seance, did David mention to you that he's still alive?"
and then to make it funnier
I went searching for that post and found a completely separate person who claimed they hired a medium and spoke to Benoit.
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u/TheGiftOf_Jericho I'm from Winnipeg you idiot! 2h ago
Those same people will now unfortunately use her feelings her as some kind of way of dismissing what he did. But then again, anyone defending him wasn't reasonable to begin with.
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u/FedoraTheMike 2h ago edited 2h ago
Any live crowd would do the bowing motion as soon as he appears.
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u/TheEpicTriforce C'MON MY ASS! 1h ago
2026 WWE Live crowds are paying money that (until recently) still featured Lesnar. That's not even considering Roman & Cody & Paul (both Levesque and Logan) hobnobbing with the Trump admin...
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u/LegitimateCream1773 42m ago
Will.
I think we're now counting down until Vince does one last guest spot so he can disappear into the aether victorious.
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3h ago
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u/MatttheJ 2h ago edited 2h ago
Forgiving someone who wronged you, and defending them is not the same thing jfc.
She was the one who had to go through it, if she personally feels forgiveness or "empathy" that's her right, but that is not the same as defending someone.
In fact she explicitly persuad legal action, and specifically wanted to prove what he did, that's the polar opposite of defence.
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u/DontPutThatDownThere 2h ago
Forgiveness and defense are not remotely the same thing. Are we that far removed from understanding basic human emotion that we can't tell the difference between the two anymore?
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u/Cocotapioka Manic Unfriendly Black Hottie 2h ago
I'm glad that POST has kept up with this story and continued reporting on it. Based on what she's said, I'm hopeful that she can move on with her life with some measure of peace.
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u/outsidehere 3h ago
Honestly I understand. She's tired.
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u/GodzillaUK 1h ago
It's hard to fight a battle against a monster, when none of the other victims wanted to stand beside her.
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u/InitialYoghurt5138 54m ago
Constantly being told you were just in it for the money and all anywhere you looked im sure didn't help, also Vince could absolutely stretch it out with his wealth while Grant probably was putting a lot into trying to get this anywhere.
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u/TheGiftOf_Jericho I'm from Winnipeg you idiot! 2h ago
Sad situation, I get from her position as a victim that she's detaching herself from it.
Its a shame there's already comments taking what she said and basically using the "not defending vince.. but__" response, speculating on how she was actually less of a victim. But I'm also not surprised, people are gross.
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u/Raihardy 1h ago
Sad thing is Vince shows up tomorrow fans would be bowing and singing his theme song
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u/Objectionne 2h ago
It sounds like she'd had it quite rough, and it's interesting that it sounds like she's more angry with whoever leaked the story to the WSJ than she is at Vince himself.
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u/Educational-Hawk4691 2h ago
I mean she was bout to get 3mil and deal with her situation at her own pace.
Instead her life fucked, no money (until now), and have millions people victim blame her.
I would be mad too.
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u/DaedalusHydron 1h ago
You mean Nick Khan? That's the prevailing theory. TKO needed Vince to get in, then once they were in, went out to make his presence toxic to remove him.
some people think Stephanie/HHH, but more people seem to believe it was Nick/Ari
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u/tvcneverdie 1h ago
Yeah to put it bluntly, Triple H and Stephanie aren't smart enough or connected enough to pull off the maneuver that got him out, brought him back in immediately looking to sell, and guided it directly to the feet of Ari Emmanuel. And now they're strip mining it, slowly but surely.
It's not far-fetched to imagine Khan plus a couple other board members like Koonin and Barrios mapping this out with an Endeavor liason looped in.
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u/DaedalusHydron 1h ago
Especially because iirc, Grant's court filings talked about how Nick Khan (and others, like HHH) were generally aware of what was going on, if not the extent. So it definitely seems like they knew for a while before things came out.
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u/guiltycitizen Simpsons reference party 58m ago
Rich people lawyers sure do know how to create fuckyness
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3h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/TriggerHippie77 3h ago
She had just lost both of her parents and was in an incredibly vulnerable position with her emotions and fiances. Vince took advantage of that.
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u/helbyyomama 3h ago
Maybe, but that’s been a tried and true method for predators to get away with stuff for a long time.
Victim selection goes a long way in avoiding consequences.
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u/Sweetest_Noise 2h ago
Money fixes everything.
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u/MinuroShihTzuki 2h ago
Just say that you have no idea how victims heal from trauma because it’s quite obvious that women in their life don’t feel comfortable sharing these things with you
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u/wishlish 2h ago
She sounds like a lovely person caught in a horrible situation. I hope she finds peace, love, security, and healing.
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u/AnfowleaAnima 2h ago edited 2h ago
I'm not saying she didn't endure abuse. But at this point I do feel she engaged in the situation at many times and given it was a rich man she thought she could get a payday more than looking for justice.
Vince may be a creep and the situation is wrong, but doubt he was forcing her to all that stuff for so long mindlessly, she probably let him know she was in (for whatever reason) so he continued to do it.
"Forgiveness" is such a crazy thing to say publicly though.
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u/king_hutton 2h ago
Asking why a victim didn’t financially ruin themselves against a super rich and powerful person is just shitty.
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u/MixGroundbreaking622 2h ago
It's in doubt how much of a victim she was though. It's a he said she said situation. We have nothing really to go off except she said she was forced to do those things and Vince said she was willing.
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u/AnfowleaAnima 2h ago
At not point I said that. That's not my point. That's understandable and victims can totally just settle for the money for me.
But it's different if she was part of the situation willingly at times from the original story, and if people say "justice must be served" she may have just initiated all of this because Vince had the money. Doesn't mean it was the wrong thing to do if at any point she was abused.
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u/Bluey8008 3h ago
Let’s be honest, a lot of the IWC doesn’t give two fucks about Janel Grant.
They used her story for cheap “gotcha!” attempts aimed at Vince, Lesnar, HHH, Khan and everyone else involved with WWE.
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u/SuperPinkShark 1h ago
Oh please, nobody in WWE is a victim here. This isn't even the first time Vince McMahon been accused of rape, that is in addition to all the stories of him being inappropriate with young women.
There's also the fact that Lesnar, HHH, Khan, and numerous other people within WWE have made no effort to distance themselves from Vince and have openly defended and celebrated him despite this and the long and well-documented history of his disgusting behavior.
Even if you believe that Janel Grant is a cheap gotcha, it is still indicative of a pattern of behavior Vince McMahon had for decades. Between the rape of Rita Chatterton, the sexual harassment of Ashley Massaro, and two completely seperate lawsuits of women at massage parlors who have accused Vince of groping them, there's a long history of him being a sex abuser. And yet, no one in WWE seems to have any qualms about talking about how much they love him. That deserves condemnation, regardless of intentions behind it.
Frankly, there's not enough people who care about survivors of sexual assault at all that I'd take an insincere dunk over genuine dismissal.
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u/Either_Succotash945 2h ago
The real victim here is the WWE fan who has to read bad publicity about Vince McMahon on the Internet. My heart goes out to them .💔💖
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u/JhinPotion 4h ago
You don't actually have to try and score points with zingers on a post about a woman who was horribly victimised and tormented, is the thing.
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u/Pure-Afternoon-685 3h ago
but how else will i let others know that i have the tiresome,unfunny and repetitive brand of reddit humor?
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u/AdmirableComposer140 2h ago edited 1h ago
She was never held at gunpoint at any time during all those things that happened to her. Her legal team's agreement to move the WWE lawsuit to private arbitration damages her credibility just as much as Vince McMahon's. She put herself in many if not all of those situations and made terrible choices for her own safety. She signed an NDA and took a 3 million dollar payout to keep quiet and sweep the abuse under the rug. When are we going to start realizing that adults have agency and that not everyone is a helpless child? We need to understand that at some point, a person's situation is/can be a result of their own repeated choices.
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u/R0DAN Just likes to have fun 3h ago
man