Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Gawker settles with Hulk Hogan for $31 million

The legal battle comes to a close

Justin Carissimo
New York
Wednesday 02 November 2016 17:59 GMT
Terry Bollea, aka Hulk Hogan, testifies in court during his trial against Gawker Media at the Pinellas County Courthouse on March 8, 2016 in St Petersburg, Florida. Bollea is taking legal action against Gawker in a USD 100 million lawsuit for releasing a video of him having sex with his best friends wife.
Terry Bollea, aka Hulk Hogan, testifies in court during his trial against Gawker Media at the Pinellas County Courthouse on March 8, 2016 in St Petersburg, Florida. Bollea is taking legal action against Gawker in a USD 100 million lawsuit for releasing a video of him having sex with his best friends wife. (John Pendygraft-Pool/Getty)

Your support helps us to tell the story

This election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.

The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.

Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.

Gawker.com is dead and Hulk Hogan is filthy rich. The media company, recently purchased by Univision who killed its flagship site, settled with the disgraced wrestling star on Wednesday afternoon for a cool $31 million, according to court filings and former CEO Nick Denton’s blog.

The former wrestler sued Gawker, Mr Denton and former editor AJ Daulerio after the website published a sex tape featuring him. Over the summer, he was awarded $140 million in damages after claiming he suffered emotional distress. Today, Mr Denton admitted that he would not be able to fund the appeals process against billionaire technology investor Peter Thiel, who bankrolled the lawsuit after he was outed as gay more than nine years ago.

"For Thiel, an investor in Facebook and Palantir, the cost of this exercise is less than 1 percent of his net worth and a little additional notoriety," he wrote on Wednesday. "The other protagonists — including Hulk Hogan and A.J. Daulerio, the author of the Gawker story about him — had much more at stake. That motivated a settlement that allows us all to move on, and focus on activities more productive than endless litigation. Life is short, for most of us."

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in