10 Things WWE Wants You To Forget About Vince McMahon
2. He Paid Rita Chatterton
[Content warning: description of sexual assault].
The news cycle is horrible.
Horrific, momentous events are reported on and debated. They strike an awful chord with anybody in possession of empathy and a conscience. Then, those people are left to question their conscience when they can no longer summon the proportionate disgust to that story when several hundred more emerge in the subsequent weeks and months.
Vince McMahon finally paying Rita Chatterton should have been a far bigger news story than it was, but by that point - January 2023 - observers had unfortunately been calloused to the cycle.
Chatterton had accused McMahon of hoisting her on top of him before raping her in 1986. Speaking to Now It Can Be Told in April 1992, Chatterton disclosed her side of the story: "He made me have oral sex. And he started to get really excited and I pulled away and he got really angry and said that's worth half a million dollars a year. And, when I said no, he said I better satisfy him and he pulled off my pants and he pulled me on top of him and he satisfied himself through intercourse."
McMahon insisted this was a shakedown, claiming to have proof that Chatterton was urged to spread a lie by former wrestler David Schultz. He sued both (and Geraldo Riviera and Brooke Skulski) before later dropping the suit.
The Wall Street Journal reported in January 2023 that Chatterton was paid a settlement figure in December "in the millions of dollars". She was able to do this as a result of a one-year window opening in New York State allowing victims to file suits otherwise barred by statute of limitations.
In the legal letter written to McMahon, Chatterton's lawyer John Clune revealed that his client had passed a polygraph test regarding the incident.
McMahon's lawyer, Jerry McDevitt, responded to the report by saying "Vince...settled the case solely to avoid the cost of litigation".