Hogan: Former Gawker Editor-in-Chief Testifies in Professional Wrestler’s Trial Over Sex Tape
(Terry Bollea, aka Hulk Hogan, takes the oath in court during his trial against Gawker Media, in St Petersburg, Florida March 8, 2016.
Reuters/Tampa Bay Times/John Pendygraft/Pool)
The former Gawker editor who posted a sex tape of celebrity wrestler Hulk Hogan testified in a Florida courtroom on Monday that he found the footage strange and “amusing,” as the website argues it exercised its press freedom in the 2012 release.
A.J. Daulerio, Gawker editor at the time, emerged as the face of the former professional wrestler’s contention that the company had few limits in using sexual content. He was Gawker’s first defense witness in the trial over Hogan’s $100 million privacy-invasion lawsuit.
The one-minute, 41-second edited video features Hogan having sex with the wife of his then-best friend, radio “shock jock” personality Bubba the Love Sponge.
Hogan, 62, said he did not know the consensual encounter, which took place nearly a decade ago in Bubba’s home, had been recorded.
Daulerio said wanted to focus on “innocuous” conversation between the celebrity and his friend’s wife.
“That was what I found most amusing,” he said, noting that he had grown up watching Hogan when he was a dominant figure in the wrestling world in the 1980s and 1990s.
The video accompanied an article that Daulerio said was intended as a commentary on celebrity sex tapes.
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