If you’re just waking up from a 30-day coma, here’s a brief recap of what you’ve missed in Hulk Hogan’s life – Gawker posted a clip from a sex tape involving Hulk Hogan and an unknown woman, people speculated that the woman may have been Heather Clem (wife of his former best friend Bubba the Love Sponge), Clem responded like, “Stop, this is ruining my life, but yeah that’s totally me”, Hogan became furious and shooks his fists while vowing to sue everyone responsible, Sponge swore that he didn’t release the tape to Gawker but then settled with Hogan in private, and Hogan sued Gawker for $100 million because the site still hasn’t taken the video down.
I think that about sums it up. Oh, and then there’s the news that a judge told Hogan yesterday that the video can indeed remain online, because WHATCHA GONNA DO, BROTHER, when you can’t prove that Gawker didn’t have the right to post the tape when it did?
You’ll recall, Hulk sued Gawker for $100 million for publishing his sex tape — and filed a preliminary motion demanding Gawker take the tape down immediately, while the case makes its way through the court system.
But today, a judge refused to order Gawker to do squat — ruling Hulk failed to prove the website wasn’t within its First Amendment rights to post the video in the first place.
Moreover, the judge wrote, “This is an example of where the proverbial ‘cat is out of the bag'” … i.e. everyone on the planet’s already seen the tape, so it’s too late to protect Hulk’s privacy. (Via TMZ)
This whole Gawker lawsuit brings to memory the time that another gentleman sued the online gossip blog and others like it for $80 million after they also posted video of his sex tape. That gentleman, of course, was Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit. Nothing ever came of that lawsuit, at least not that I could find, because Gawker willingly took down the video prior to Durst’s attorneys serving a cease and desist.
These cases obviously differ in that Gawker removed the Durst video but refuse to do so for Hogan. And they’re similar in the fact that nobody on this planet wants to watch Durst or Hogan have sex.
