WWE Facing Lawsuit Over Alleged Racist Scripts
Allegations in Britney Abrahams' lawsuit against WWE include Mansoor being behind 9/11.
Former WWE writer Britney Abrahams has filed a lawsuit against the promotion alleging discriminatory and retaliatory acts against Abrahams, a Black female, for challenging "offensively racist and stereotypical jargon" in company scripts.
Abrahams vs. World Wrestling Ent., Inc. was filed on 24 April 2023. Abrahams alleges, as part of it, that after several objections, WWE dismissed her for taking a WrestleMania-branded chair home in 2022 - despite this purportedly being common practice, and something white writers didn't face punishment for.
A WWE writer from November 2020 until April 2022, when she was terminated, Abrahams' suit claims "discriminatory treatment, harassment, hostile work environment, wrongful termination, and unlawful retaliation against the Plaintiff due to her race, color, and gender.”
WWE, Vince McMahon, Stephanie McMahon, Christine Lubrana, Jen Pepperman, Chris Dunn, Ryan Callahan, and Mike Heller are listed as defendants. Witnesses included Kyla Sylvers (another of WWE's few Black writers at the time), Chad Barbash, Brian Parise, and Andrea Listenberger.
Included in the lawsuit are several examples of WWE allegedly asking talent to perform racially-stereotypical material.
- Dunn is claimed to have scripted Bianca Belair, WWE's African-American Raw Women's Champion to say “Uh-Uh! Don't make me take off my earrings and beat your ass!”, based on "cruel, ugly stereotypes of dark-skinned, black women." Belair objected to the line, along with Abrahams, telling the former writer that said had said to Dunn: “3 DIFFERENT TIMES THAT I DON'T WANT TO SAY THAT LINE! BUT HE NEVER LISTENS TO ME! HE PUTS THAT LINE IN EVERY WEEK.” Additionally, Bianca is alleged to have claimed these lines made her look "ghetto." When this information was passed onto Dunn by Abrahams, the "Defendants failed and/or refused to take any immediate or appropriate corrective action in response."
- A storyline idea for the former Reggie, currently Scrypts in NXT, was to involve him being positioned alongside Carmella on television, dressing in drag. Shane Thorne was allegedly then the subject of a pitch that would have seen him adopt a hunter gimmick, capturing Reggie, who would escape.
- Callahan threw out a pitched idea that would see Mansoor harbour a secret while working with Aliyah and Angel Garza. That secret would have been the Saudi Arabian star revealing himself as the mastermind behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Born in October 1995, Mansoor would have been five years old at the time of the atrocity.
- On her dismissal, Abrahams alleges: "In the years prior to Plaintiff making her complaint of discrimination, WWE did not subject employees to disciplinary action in response to taking the removable, temporary seating, limited-edition WrestleMania branded chairs, from the WrestleMania events."
Abrahams is seeking reinstatement, damages, declaratory judgment, and an injunction restraining defendants from engaging in such unlawful conduct.
WWE is yet to comment on the lawsuit.