Hulk Hogan's Sex Tape Scandal — Hulk Hogan wearing black bandana with hands clasped in prayer position in courtroom

Hulk Hogan's Sex Tape Scandal

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Published August 28, 2026

The Hulk Hogan sex tape scandal started in 2012 when a covertly recorded video of wrestler Terry Bollea and Heather Clem hit the internet and Gawker published a highlight clip. The four year legal fight that followed ended with a $115 million verdict, killed Gawker Media, and exposed Peter Thiel as Hogan's secret financier.

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Overview

The scandal wraps three layers. The first is the tape itself, secretly recorded around 2007 at the Tampa home of Bubba the Love Sponge, who had encouraged Bollea to sleep with his wife Heather1. The second is Gawker's October 2012 decision to post a highlight clip, which turned the sex tape into the test case internet lawyers used to argue privacy law versus press freedom1. The third is the leaked background audio in which Bollea used the N word discussing his daughter Brooke's dating life, a leak that ended his WWE career months before trial3.

The internet's involvement extended beyond watching the tape. Reddit threads on r/videos and r/squaredcircle pushed clips of Gawker editor Albert Daulerio's deposition to the front page4, where his line that a celebrity sex tape was newsworthy unless the star was under age four turned into a viral reaction video.

Origin & Background

Platform
Gawker (initial publication) / Reddit (viral spread)
Date
2012

A 30 minute sex tape recorded around 2007 at the Tampa home of Bollea's friend Bubba the Love Sponge began circulating online in 20121. In the recording, Bubba can be heard encouraging his wife Heather Clem before Bollea entered the bedroom1. On October 4, 2012, Gawker posted a one minute highlight titled 'Even for a Minute, Watching Hulk Hogan Have Sex in a Canopy Bed is Not Safe For Work but Watch it Anyway'4. Bollea sued the Clems that month and settled the case in late October before focusing on Gawker1.

How It Spread

Bollea sued Gawker for $100 million in 2013 after the site refused to remove the clip1. By July 2015, the National Enquirer and Radar Online published transcripts of Bollea's racist rants pulled from sealed background audio, in which he called himself 'a racist' while discussing his daughter dating a black man2. WWE fired him within days, and he filed an emergency motion on July 29, 2015 accusing Gawker of leaking the audio to sabotage his case3.

The trial convened in St. Petersburg, Florida in March 2016, and on March 18 the jury awarded Hogan $55 million in compensatory damages plus $60 million for emotional distress1. Ars Technica warned the $115 million total could 'wipe out Gawker'1. Two months later, Forbes and the New York Times revealed that PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel had secretly bankrolled the case in retaliation for Gawker outing him as gay in 2007, and Gawker Media filed for bankruptcy that summer4.

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