Jurors in St. Petersburg, Florida, where the star lives, will weigh his demand for $100 million in damages. Wrestling is my job. Hogan and his representatives took their complaint to federal court in 2012. “Doesn’t matter how strong they are”, Mr. Vogt said, people who “sit behind a computer in an office in New York” have “incredible power” thanks to the Internet.
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“I was pretty rocked”.
“I couldn’t quit shaking”, he said.
Hogan, 62, was dressed all in black, including a silver crucifix on a chain and his trademark bandana, when he took the stand Monday.
The lawsuit stems from an incident in 2006 when, following his divorce from wife Linda, Hogan had sex with the wife of his then-best friend, radio personality Bubba “The Love Sponge” Clem.
Hogan testified that when he and Heather eventually did have sex, her husband handed Hogan a condom. He described the couple as having an open marriage. And Hogan said he didn’t know he was being videoed when he had sex with Heather Clem. Hogan was soft-spoken and polite, trotting out his growling “yeah, brother” routine just once, and often referring to his character in the third person.
Once upon a time, Hulk Hogan was one of the most famous professional wrestlers in the world.
The court proceedings, which could last three weeks, might still offer a dose of theatrics.
Gawker also sent a reporter, Keenan Trotter, to Florida to cover the trial.
Houston said Gawker was free to provide coverage of the sex tape – it just didn’t need to publish any of the footage to do so.
Former WWE Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan attended the first court hearing in his ongoing legal battle with Gawker, stemming from the online media company’s leak of his sex tape.
An attorney for Gawker, which could be forced into bankruptcy if made to pay out the 0m suit, countered that the news website did not profit from the publication, which was intended as a revelatory piece of public interest journalism.
Maybe it’s high time that the country examines whether it’s doing us much good to know as much about one another as we seem to these days.
Gawker defended its actions in a statement Monday.
Hogan’s attorney for the opening statements, Shane Vogt, emphasized that Gawker made a “conscious decision” to release the video as part of an effort to support its brand, increase page views and get money from advertisers, while Hogan suffered.
Hogan is suing Gawker for $100 million for publishing a resulting sex videotape. “Only Justice Brother HH”, Hogan wrote on Twitter.
Vogt even presented jurors with a chart, showing Gawker’s uptick in traffic back in October 2012, when Hogan’s sex tape clips were published.
“The rest was conversation”, Berry said.
Gawker did not originally film the video. If Gawker loses, the site could be forced to close.
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Jane Kirtley, a media ethics and law professor at the University of Minnesota, said it’s rare for such cases to make it to trial.
