Hulk Hogan receives $31 million settlement with Gawker

Gawker and Hulk Hogan reached a settlement reached a $31 million (28 million euros) settlement in a Florida court following a years-long invasion of privacy battle after Gawker released a video of Hulk Hogan having sex with a friend's wife. 

The settlement calls for Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, to be paid the settlement and receive a share of assets that Gawker sold as a part of their bankruptcy process, according to New York bankruptcy court documents.

Gawker founder Nick Denton said in a blog post Wednesday that the group agreed to the settlement, due to monetary reinforcements from German-American PayPal founder Peter Thiel, who is backing Hogan. "All-out war with Thiel would have cost too much, and hurt too many people, and there was no end in sight," Denton wrote. "We were confident the appeals court would reduce or eliminate the runaway Florida judgement."

The case bankrupted Gawker Media, which served as a parent company for other blogs as well, including sports blog Deadspin, video game blog Kotaku and technology blog Gizmodo. These sites are now being operated by Univision, a Spanish-language television network that bought assets in Gawker Media for $135 million in August. Gawker.com is no longer active, but the archives still remain online.

Fight against Gawker

Gawker was a controversial website that would feature no-holds-barred reporting on celebrities and important figures. In 2007 the website reported Thiel was homosexual, and Thiel acknowledged in May he was funding Hogan's case against Gawker due to the report, in the hope of driving Gawker out of business. "It's less about revenge and more about specific deterrence," said Thiel in a May interview.

Univision deleted many posts of the properties they acquired from Gawker, including posts from Gizmodo and women-oriented blog Jezebel, as they were tied to litigation.

kbd/kl (AFP, AP)