In court or in the ring? Hulk Hogan revealed in a new interview with the New York Post that he and Gawker publisher Nick Denton had a “stare-down” during his multimillion-dollar sex-tape lawsuit against the site.
As previously reported, the famed wrestler, 62, took Denton and former editor A.J. Daulerio to court for publishing a video in 2012 of him and his friend Bubba “The Love Sponge” Clem’s wife, Heather, having sex in 2006. (Hogan was married to his now ex-wife, Linda Hogan, at the time it was filmed.) Hogan claimed he didn’t know he was being filmed. He was awarded $115 million in damages late last week and was given an additional $25 million this week.
“He scared the hell out of me,” Hogan recalled of Denton to the Post, days after his victory. “He scared me staring at me, man. He just sat there staring. It was right after his cross-examination. He stood up and stared. It was like he was going to call me out at Wrestlemania. Yikes!”
Hogan admitted he was taken aback in court while watching Denton and Daulerio’s testimonies. “They think that just because you have Facebook or Twitter, you crossed the line between normal person to celebrity status. So that means anyone who has anything to do with social media is fair game,” Hogan said. “I started having, like Oprah has, these ‘aha’ moments. … Everybody’s a celebrity, I thought. Oh, my God, they’re gunning for everybody.”
The scandal has been tough for Hogan over the past four years. He told the Post that the whole ordeal has been “embarrassing” — in and out of court.
“I dealt with so many horrible things, people in public asking me about the tape. I felt like I had, all of a sudden I had a heat lamp on me at all times,” he said. “I would run into kids who would say, ‘I’d downloaded the Hulk Hogan Wrestlemania video, and [the] Hulk Hogan sex tape came up.'”
Hogan also opened up about how the case has affected him during an interview with Good Morning America on Wednesday. “[Gawker] was hoping that, financially, I wouldn’t be able to stay in the game with them, and I’d quit or tap out or something,” he said. “I felt like I had this monster on my shoulders no matter where I went.”
