Gawker to pay Hulk Hogan $31 million in settlement

In a blog post published on Medium this week, embattled Gawker founder Nick Denton wrote, “The saga is over.”

He was referring to a settlement in his four-year legal entanglement with former pro wrestler Hulk Hogan, whose given name is Terry Bollea.

Denton, whom a court originally ordered to pay Bollea $140 million for invasion of privacy, filed for personal bankruptcy following the verdict this past spring. The parties settled for $31 million this week, thus ending a story that started when Gawker posted a video of Bollea having sex with a friend’s wife. Gawker claimed that the First Amendment protected its right to publish the video.

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Denton said in his post that the “settlement ... allows us all to move on, and focus on activities more productive than endless litigation.”

After the company filed for bankruptcy protection, Univision purchased Gawker Media’s other properties in a $135 million auction bid. Those sites include Gizmodo, Lifehacker, Deadspin, Jezebel, Kotaku and Jalopnik.

The lawsuit came under heavy criticism when it was revealed that tech billionaire Peter Thiel—whom many said held a personal vendetta against the publishing company—funded Bollea’s legal team.

”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. “Gawker’s nemesis was not going away.” Former Gawker Media property Valleywag was the first to report that Thiel is gay.

Thiel issued a football-spiking statement Wednesday that read, “It is a great day for Terry Bollea and a great day for everyone’s right to privacy.”

Denton founded Gawker in 2002, and it is widely credited for defining the voice of internet-gossip journalism.

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