Newly released crash footage has pulled former pro wrestling promoter Vince McMahon back into headlines for a completely different reason.
Dashcam and bodycam video from a July 2025 car crash in Westport, Connecticut, shows the former WWE chairman behind the wheel of a Bentley Continental GT Speed, reaching speeds of nearly 115 mph on Route 15 before slamming into the back of a BMW.
The footage captures McMahon weaving through traffic before striking the vehicle and then crashing into a guardrail, sending debris into the opposite lane. A state trooper who had been following behind confronted him moments later.
“You almost hit 115mph, and then you just hit someone because you weren’t paying attention. Were you looking at your phone?” the officer asked. “The person was right in front of you, there’s got to be a reason you hit them.”
McMahon denied being distracted.
“I’m just trying to drive, I wasn’t looking at my phone… I haven’t been driving my car in god knows how long,” he said. He blamed himself for the crash, calling himself a “st*pid f**king fool” and admitting of the vehicle, “It’s too f**king fast.”
He told officers he was rushing to see his granddaughter for her birthday and insisted he was not trying to outrun police.
The driver of the BMW, Barbara Doran, later described the incident publicly.
“McMahon hit me going 80-90mph as I drove in the right lane of the narrow Merritt Highway,” she wrote. “I was as lucky to have kept control of the car, more or less, as I shot off the road after being catapulted over 100 yards.” She added that McMahon apologized at the scene and repeated that he had been on his way to see his granddaughter.
Legally, the crash resulted in a reckless driving charge and a citation for following too closely. However, the Associated Press later reported that McMahon was granted entry into a pretrial diversion program.
A state Superior Court judge ruled that he could resolve the case by making a $1,000 charitable contribution and driving only if properly licensed and insured. If he complies with those conditions, the charges are expected to be dismissed.
While the crash footage has dominated recent coverage, a far more serious legal battle is going on.
Janel Grant, a former WWE employee, filed a federal lawsuit naming McMahon, John Laurinaitis, and WWE as defendants. According to sources, the complaint also references former WWE champion Brock Lesnar dozens of times.
Grant’s ordeal first became public in June 2022 when she was identified in a Wall Street Journal investigation examining non-disclosure agreements tied to McMahon. She said she was warned the article would publish and told she could not comment, acknowledge what was happening, or even say she was not okay.
“I lost control of my narrative,” Grant said. The psychological toll, according to her remarks, was devastating. She attempted to take her own life and survived only because someone intervened.
Grant has also criticized the broader use of NDAs in corporate environments, arguing they can conceal patterns of harmful conduct and allow behavior to continue unchecked. According to her account, WWE asked her to participate in a joint statement characterizing her relationship with McMahon as consensual. She refused. A company spokesperson later described it that way in the Wall Street Journal without her consent.
She says she has spent six figures on legal and medical costs and has emphasized that her focus is not revenge but systemic change. Leadership shifts alone, she argues, do not address deeper cultural problems within organizations. She has stated that people working at WWE headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut remain fearful and that her goal is accountability and transparency.
Following early reports about hush-money payments, McMahon stepped away from WWE, returned, and then exited again in early 2024 after Grant’s lawsuit became public. Reports indicated his departure came under pressure linked to TKO, WWE’s parent company, and concerns about sponsor relationships.
Wrestling Observer Radio’s Dave Meltzer suggested McMahon never intended his resignation to be permanent.
“On the day Vince McMahon resigned, said he was leaving, said he was retired, said he was done, he had zero intention of that being the end. None,” Meltzer reported.
He added that the lawsuit’s graphic details forced action. “The lawsuit was so descriptively horrible, it scared off sponsors and made Endeavor say, ‘you’ve got to go.’”
Even so, Meltzer noted the possibility of a future return has not been ruled out. “They’re probably waiting for this lawsuit to go away… and then maybe they bring him back. That was the playbook.”
