When TMZ asked Hogan who the woman might be, he said, “I don’t even remember people’s names last weekend that I met-I meet so many people-much less girls five or six or seven years ago.”īy publicly discussing his sexual partners, Hogan did not grant the media unlimited access to his private life, but he did indicate that the story of the sex tape and its contents (if not the actual sex tape itself) was of public interest. When someone on “The Howard Stern Show” commented that he looked tired, he responded, “I should be tired-I’ve been banging my new chick all the time.” Shortly after Gawker released the footage, Hogan discussed it on “Howard Stern” and on a TMZ television show.
#Gawker lawsuit trial#
He confirmed at trial that he talked, on various radio shows, about the size of his penis and the number of women he slept with.
Hogan testified that he felt “completely humiliated” by the publication of the tape, but, as he also acknowledged, he was not a stranger to explicit and wide-ranging discussions of his sex life. The rest showed awkward conversation between Hogan and Heather Clem. Only nine seconds of the portion used showed actual sex. Gawker editors cut down the grainy, black-and-white footage to a minute and forty seconds, which they published on their Web site early the next month. The footage that Gawker received was a half hour long. Bubba Clem had apparently encouraged his wife to sleep with Hogan on several prior occasions, and there was evidence that he had set up the camera that captured this tryst. At the time, she was married to Bubba Clem, known as Bubba the Love Sponge, a radio shock jock and Hogan’s best friend. In September, 2012, Gawker received an anonymous package containing a DVD that appeared to show Hogan having sex with a woman named Heather Clem. Many established news organizations, including this one (I am _The New Yorker’_ s general counsel), would not publish a video of this kind, but it is important to separate what might be considered tasteless or even mean-spirited conduct from conduct that violates the law. In this case, there was evidence both that Hogan was accustomed to publicly discussing details of his sex life, and that he himself considered his sex life, and the existence of the videotape, if not its contents, of legitimate public interest. Constitution, the First Amendment protects the publication of true facts about public figures, unless such facts would be highly offensive to a reasonable person and are not of legitimate concern to the public. But because state courts are not permitted to impose penalties that would violate the U.S. Violations of privacy, like other forms of personal injury, are generally an issue of state law. But it is worth considering the possible effects on publishers if a judgment of this magnitude is allowed to stand. The publication of a videotape of consensual sex between adults is not the most appealing place to plant a First Amendment flag. Gawker will certainly appeal the verdict, as it should (after it pays a bond of up to fifty million dollars), arguing that the jury was unreasonable in finding that Hogan’s right to privacy outweighed Gawker’s right to publish the material, which it believed was of public interest. Gawker has reported that it earned forty-four million dollars in revenue in 2014, and in January Gawker’s owner, Nick Denton, announced that he had sold a portion of his company to investors in order to fund this case. Verdicts of this size can pose an existential risk to a media company.
It’s a shocking amount, not least because it’s forty million dollars more than Hogan (whose real name is Terry Bollea) had demanded. Hogan sued Gawker for posting portions of a sex tape it received from an anonymous sender. On Monday afternoon, a Florida jury added twenty-five million dollars in punitive damages to the hundred and fifteen million dollars it had awarded Hulk Hogan, on Friday, in his invasion-of-privacy case against Gawker Media. Photograph by Steve Nesius / New York Post / Pool / AP It’s worth considering the possible effects on publishers if the judgment against Gawker in the Hulk Hogan case is allowed to stand.
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