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WWE Announcer Jonathan Coachman Calls Sexual Harassment Lawsuit Claims "Vicious Lies and Flat Out Fabrications"

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WWE Raw announcer Jonathan Coachman has been named in a sexual harassment lawsuit by former ESPN host Adrienne Lawrence, along with other ESPN personalities like Chris Berman and Bomani Jones. According to the New York Post, the lawsuit alleged that male ESPN executives and employees kept "scoreboards" of female co-workers they wanted to sleep with, made inappropriate comments, and watched porn on work computers in the workplace. Specifically, the suit alleges that Coachman established a professional relationship with Lawrence under the pretext of mentorship, but that she broke off contact after being warned that Coachman had allegedly sexually harassed other female employees. The lawsuit calls ESPN "a company rife with misogyny."

In response to the complaint, Coachman took to Twitter to make a public statement:

Coachman also retweeted the following tweet:

https://twitter.com/HealingMB/status/971007590497910785

ESPN, for their part, also denied the allegations in the lawsuit, stating:

"We conducted a thorough investigation of the claims Adrienne Lawrence surfaced to ESPN and they are entirely without merit. Ms. Lawrence was hired into a two-year talent development program and was told that her contract would not be renewed at the conclusion of the training program. At that same time, ESPN also told 100 other talent with substantially more experience, that their contracts would not be renewed. The company will vigorously defend its position and we are confident we will prevail in court."

Coachman, who spent years away from WWE hosting ESPN's Sportscenter, returned to the company in January, replacing Booker T on the Monday Night Raw announce team. WWE, a company notoriously adverse to any potentially unflattering scandals which recently fired its reigning Cruiserweight Champion after a sexual assault allegation became public, said only, "We take these matters very seriously and are investigating them."

Jonathan Coachman

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