The recent Hulk Hogan v. Gawker Media trial, which resulted in the former professional wrestler being awarded $115 million, had a small Bloomington connection.
Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, initially sued Gawker for invasion of privacy and infliction of emotional distress after the gossip site posted a minute-and-a-half-long excerpt from a 30-minute sex tape of Bollea without his permission.
In court documents, Bollea’s attorney pointed out previous instances of former Gawker editor A.J. Daulerio, who wrote the accompanying article with Bollea’s sex tape, invading individuals’ privacy.
One such instance was in 2010, when Daulerio posted an explicit video of an intoxicated woman having sex on the floor of a men’s bathroom in a Bloomington bar. According to the documents, she was lying in a pool of urine.
With this anecdote, and many others, Bollea’s attorney meant to prove that Gawker was negligent and reckless with sources’ privacy.
A search of the article shows it was originally posted on Deadspin, Gawker Media’s sports website.
The girl and her father begged Daulerio and Gawker’s legal team to take down the video, but the site initially rejected their pleas.
“This is a news story and completely newsworthy,” Gawker responded to them, according to court documents. “It’s the truth, which can be hurtful, granted, but one’s actions can have unintended consequences ... we believe that we are publishing this legitimately and as such, we will not remove the clip.”
The New York Post even reported Gawker’s complaint department callously commented on the complaint by saying “Blah, blah, blah” when they forwarded it to Daulerio.
Days later, Daulerio removed the video and said in an interview with GQ Magazine he had regrets because the video was possibly rape due to the woman’s level of intoxication.
“A.J. Daulerio was Gawker.com’s editor-in-chief and fulfilled and executed the company philosophy: to make sure everybody knew everything,” the court documents said. “Gawker has consistently acted as pornographers, not journalists.”
Alexa Chryssovergis
