Tag: Rita Chatterton

WWE Executive Chairman Vince McMahon and former referee Rita Chatterton agreed to a multi-million dollar legal settlement in December, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Chatterton won’t get the $11.75 million in damages she initially was looking for, but the exact amount she agreed upon is unknown. The deal calls for an upfront lump sum and annual installments, similar to other such agreements he has made throughout the years with other women that the WSJ first reported on in June 2022.

The first female referee in WWE history made a legal demand of McMahon in November 2022 for damages stemming from him allegedly raping her in 1986.

In a statement to the WSJ, McMahon’s long-time attorney Jerry McDevitt said, “Mr. McMahon denies and always has denied raping Ms. Chatterton. And he settled the case solely to avoid the cost of litigation.”

Despite the incident being so long ago, the WSJ notes her legal demand became possible due to a one-year window in New York State that allows victims of sex crimes to file lawsuits that would otherwise be barred by the statute of limitations.” Her legal letter to McMahon’s legal team came weeks before that window opened.

McMahon had sued Chatterton in 1993 and claimed she was induced by a disgruntled wrestler to make a false rape accusation against him. He later dropped the case, claiming he needed to do so in order to focus on his 1994 steroid trial.

It’s the latest such settlement for McMahon who resigned in the midst of the scandal uncovered by the WSJ reports last summer of sexual misconduct and nearly $20 million in unreported expenses. Those expenses included “hush money” payouts of $7.5 million to a former wrestler in 2018, who claimed McMahon forced her into performing oral sex, and a 2022 agreement with a former employee he allegedly had an affair with that totaled $3 million.

After resigning in July 2022, McMahon used his standing as the company’s largest shareholder to return to the Board and eventually be named Executive Chairman, ousting three Board members and bringing two along with him in the process.

In the same time period, his daughter, Stephanie McMahon, resigned as company co-CEO and from the Board where she served as Chairwoman after her father left. 

The company is pursuing a sale they hope to have completed by the middle of the year.

Former WWF referee Rita Chatterton has addressed her sexual assault allegations against WWE’s Vince McMahon resurfacing following a recent New York Magazine article. 

In what was billed as her first official interview since 1992, Chatterton appeared on the Cheap Heat Productions Podcast to discuss her career and to speak on the reaction to the New York Magazine piece.

Chatterton said that what began as a profile on her career as WWF’s first female referee became something different once allegations that McMahon had paid “hush money” to four women to “suppress allegations of sexual misconduct and infidelity.”

“I had met [New York Magazine’s] Abraham Riesman and had talked with him about my referee days, and this was after I had received the award from the [International Pro Wrestling] Hall of Fame,” Chatterton said. “…Next thing I know, [Vince] McMahon was in the papers again for paying hush money, and Mr. Riesman called me and asked me a few questions.” 

“I answered a few questions for him. Next thing I know, we’re in the magazine and here we are,” said Chatterton. 

Chatterton said that she has been inundated with media requests since the New York Magazine story was published, but that she has largely chosen to ignore the requests. 

“Things are crazy. My phone is going crazy with people wanting me to do interviews, wanting me to do television, wanting me to do this show and that show,” said Chatterton. 

“At this point, I have chosen not to do anything. Doesn’t mean I won’t in the future, but at this point, I am not quite sure what I’m doing so I’m just gonna sit back, take my time, think about it and figure it out,” Chatterton said. 

“As far as I’m concerned at this point right now, today in my life, I’m just not even going there. I’m not going there in my life again,” said Chatterton.

“It still hurts. The whole thing still bothers me, so I would really just rather not go there.”

The full interview with Chatterton can be seen below.

In a longform New York Magazine article written by the author of the upcoming Vince McMahon unauthorized biography, a former WWE wrestler corroborated female referee Rita Chatterton’s sexual assault accusations against McMahon.

Chatterton, WWE’s first-ever female referee, also spoke to writer Abraham Riesman, but didn’t want to go into details about what allegedly happened in a limo that July 1986 night. This was her first interview since 1992.

In that 1992 appearance on Geraldo Rivera’s daytime talk show, she accused McMahon of raping her in a limo in 1986 but because the statute of limitations had run out, no charges could be brought against him.

Mario Mancini (Leonard Inzitari) became the first wrestler to speak on the record and corroborate the story, choosing to speak to Riesman now because of McMahon’s current-day issues that has a special committee of the WWE Board of Directors investigating him on allegations of misconduct.

Mancini and Chatterton have known each other since the early 1980s as they trained together at a wrestling school. He claimed that Chatterton took him aside before a 1986 WWF house show and burst into tears, describing what happened inside the limo which included McMahon forcing her to perform oral sex before pulling her on top of him for sex.

From the article:

“Inzitari doesn’t use the word rape while talking about what happened. But he describes something that sounds like the conventional definition of that term.

“Was she taken advantage of? Absolutely,” Inzitari says. “Was she scared to death? Absolutely. Did she wanna do that? Probably not.”

Chatterton said that she had wanted to talk to McMahon about her future and gaining full-time employment. After McMahon said he didn’t want to discuss it at a large dinner she and others were at, he suggested they go to a diner and talk privately. While outside getting into her car, she saw him in his limo and he suggested they talk there as he was tired. The limo driver was not present at the time.

Reisman wrote, “She declines to describe to me the specifics of what happened next” and then detailed what she had said before in two separate appearances with Rivera.

McMahon allegedly said in order for Chatterton to get a $500,000/year deal he had mentioned to her before, she would have to “satisfy him.” That is when he allegedly forced her to perform the aforementioned acts or else be blackballed from the industry.

She didn’t tell her story initially due to a fear that her elderly parents would suffer health issues due to the stress. After they passed is when Chatterton decided to go public.

The then-WWF declined to comment on the allegations at the time as they were dealing with several other of their well-documented scandals. However, he and wife, Linda, sued Chatterton, Rivera and several production people, and former wrestler David Shults, claiming they were all part of a conspiracy against the McMahons. The suit was eventually dropped. 

Chatterton is also speaking out now due to the latest controversial McMahon headlines.

“He’s not gonna pay for what he did to me,” she says. But she’s glad the hush-money allegations are coming to light. “Now this girl’s come forward,” Chatterton says of the paralegal whose friend sent the initial emails to the WWE board, “and I’m sure others will come forward. Because we’re not the only two. There’s not a doubt in my mind about that.”

Chatterton pauses and thinks for a second. She chuckles a little.

“As far as wrestling goes, I guess I’m the first in a lot of things,” she says. “As far as I know, I’m the first to come out with the whole issue of what a scumbag he is.”

Inzitari, too, sees storm clouds ahead for his onetime employer.

“I’ll tell you why I’m hopping on the bandwagon now,” the former grappler tells me. “There’s worse stuff than that.”

While he has temporarily stepped down as WWE CEO & Chairman as the investigation is carried out, McMahon remains active as the head of creative and recently appeared on WWE Raw and SmackDown.