Gawker Media has reached a settlement with Terry Bollea, known as the wrestler Hulk Hogan, after it was bankrupted in a lengthy legal battle over its publication of part of a tape of Hogan having sex with his friend’s wife.
Court documents show that the case was settled Wednesday for $31 million, Reuters reported. A Florida jury previously awarded Hogan $140 million in damages in June.
The terms of the settlement also include Gawker Media deleting three stories: the one that included the tape of Hogan; another about scientist Shiva Ayyadurai’s claim that he invented email; and a third detailing a feud between the founders of the dating app Tinder, according to former Gawker CEO Nick Denton.
Denton wrote a blog post explaining the reasoning for the settlement, saying that another legal battle with tech billionaire, Donald Trump supporter and notorious Gawker hater Peter Thiel, who bankrolled Hogan’s suit, would have been “too much.”
“But all-out legal war with Thiel would have cost too much, and hurt too many people, and there was no end in sight,” Denton wrote. “The Valley billionaire, famously relentless, had committed publicly to support Hulk Hogan beyond the appeal and ‘until his final victory.’ Gawker’s nemesis was not going away.”
Since losing the Hogan suit, Gawker Media was sold to Univision to $135 million while its namesake site has been mothballed.
