On Thursday, March 17, 2016, Gawker Media LLC, the defendant in a $100 million right of privacy trial brought by wrestling icon and American hero Hulk Hogan over the news site’s publication of a sex tape featuring the Hulkster, made one last stand to the jury on the ninth day of trial and on the eve of closing statements. In keeping consistent with the argument it’s made throughout the trial—that the celebrity and former WWE star Hogan repeatedly bragged about and discussed issues of his prominent sexual conquests and exaggerated “manhood” for years before the sex tape was released—Gawker played for the jury a commercial featuring Hogan showing off his rear end and straddling a wrecking ball in a suggestive manner.
Throughout the trial, Gawker has played clips of Hogan discussing his sex life on radio interviews and in depositions where he was questioned on such habits, as well as interviewed other witnesses corroborating Hogan’s propensity to brag about such things. Hogan, on the other hand, has fervently denied that the interviews or discussions about his sex life had any truthfulness to them, saying that because of the role of playing the cultural celebrity in which the public only views him as Hulk Hogan the character, he was entitled to embellish certain aspects of the character’s persona and that he did those interview to keep up the image of the All-American everyone idolized. Where the issue turns, Hogan has argued, is when the private, sexual life of the man behind the character, Terry Gene Bollea, is brought to public light, which is what he claims Gawker has allegedly done and something he never intended.
Closing statements in the case are expected to be delivered on Friday, March 18, 2016 with jury deliberation to continue throughout the following week.