PLAYBOY: You lived with an older brother, your mother and occasional others right?
MCMAHON: My parents got divorced and I went with my mom, Vickie. She was in the church choir. A real performer, a female Elmer Gantry. Very striking, with an excellent voice. Lived with her and my real a$$hole of a stepfather, a man who enjoyed kicking people around.
PLAYBOY: Your stepfather beat you?
MCMAHON: [Nodding] Leo Lupton. It's unfortunate he died before I could kill him. I would have enjoyed that. Not that he didn't have some redeeming qualities. He was an athlete, great at any sport, which I admired. And I remember watching The Jackie Gleason Show with him. We used to laugh together at Jackie Gleason.
PLAYBOY: Lupton was an electrician. He hit you with tools didn't he? A pipe wrench?
MCMAHON: Sure.
PLAYBOY: He hit your brother, too?
MCMAHON: No, I was the only one of the kids who would speak up, and that's what provoked the attacks. You would think that after being on the receiving end of several attacks I would wisen up, but I couldn't. I refused to. I felt I should say something, even though I knew what the result would be.
PLAYBOY: You fought him when he hit your mother.
MCMAHON: Absolutely, First time I remember, I was six years old. The slightest provocation would set him off. But I lived through it.
PLAYBOY: That's an awful way to learn how a man behaves.
MCMAHON: I learned how not to be. One thing I loathe is a man who will strike a woman. There's never an excuse for that.
PLAYBOY: Eventually, you escaped from your stepfather.
MCMAHON: By the time I was 14 I was on my own. I was pretty much a man then. Physically at least. In other ways I'm still becoming a man.
PLAYBOY: Was the abuse all physical, or was there sexual abuse, too?
MCMAHON: That's not anything I would like to embellish. Just because it was weird.
PLAYBOY: Did it come from the same man?
MCMAHON: No. It wasn't...it wasn't from a male.