Hulk Hogan cut himself down to size on Tuesday — testifying that his real-life manhood doesn’t measure up to the boasts of his larger-than-life character.
Day Two of Hogan’s $100 million invasion-of-privacy trial against the website Gawker saw the pro wrestling legend admit that while his professional persona claims to have a 10-inch penis, he is really more modestly endowed.
During cross-examination in a Florida courtroom, Hogan was confronted with a 2006 interview about his genitalia.
The back-and-forth between Hogan and shock-jock Bubba the Love Sponge Clem featured Hogan’s former best friend claiming, “I’ve seen it before” and saying, “hard, you’re probably 7 or 8 inches.”
“Dude, I’ve got size 15 (shoes), I wear a size 15 ring … Figure it out,” answers Hogan, who says a man’s penis is “two-thirds the size of your feet and hands.”
“So, Hogan, you’re claiming, you’re claiming to maybe have a 10-inch c–k?” Bubba asked.
“I’m not claiming. Those are the facts, Jack,” Hogan replied.
A lawyer for Gawker — which posted hidden-camera video of Hogan having sex with Bubba’s then-wife, Heather Clem, in 2007 — then asked if Hogan had “any doubt … that you were discussing the length of your penis?”
“Well, it’s not mine, because mine isn’t that size, but we were discussing the length of Hulk Hogan’s,” the former wrestler, whose real name is Terry Bollea, replied.
“Seriously?” Gawker lawyer Michael Sullivan asked.
“No, seriously, I do not have a 10-inch penis. No, I do not. Seriously. Believe that. Seriously,” Hogan said.
Sullivan then asked if Hogan was “discussing Hulk Hogan’s penis.”
“Yeah, because Terry Bollea’s penis is not 10 inches, like you’re trying to say,” Hogan responded.
Several members of the four-woman, two-man jury snickered and stifled laughs, while others grimaced and recoiled in their seats. “Maybe instead of dropping the leg on people’s neck, I’ll start dropping something else. Drop the tripod,” Hogan told Howard Stern in 2012.
It followed the playing of another radio interview in which Hogan boasted about the power of his package just days after Gawker posted the excerpts from the Hogan sex tape in 2012.
On the witness stand, Hogan said he “was trying to make the best out of a bad situation” by “keeping in character … just laughing and having fun with it.”
Hogan — who wore an all-black outfit, including a bandanna, nearly identical to his Monday attire — also testified that his fame had created a great deal of interest in what he kept hidden under his wrestling tights.
Hogan recalled how he once attended a Tampa Bay Rays baseball game and went to use a stadium bathroom, where “everyone’s calling me Hulk Hogan.”
“I’m standing at the urinal and someone’s taking a picture of me,” he said.
“If Hulk Hogan goes to the bathroom, it should be a private moment, but here are people who take advantage of it. After a wrestling match, in the shower I’ve had people sneak a photo of me.”
Jurors also saw 2015 testimony in which then-Gawker managing editor Emma Carmichael said the sex tape was the site’s third-most popular post that year.
“Don’t they place a large emphasis on driving as much traffic as possible?” Hogan lawyer Charles Harder asked.
“We’re encouraged to publish stories that appeal to a broad audience and sometimes that means hitting traffic marks and sometimes that means publishing pieces we’re really proud of,” said Carmichael, now editor of Gawker’s sister site, Jezebel.
Carmichael was also confronted with logs where she wrote that company policy prohibited discussing Hogan “while our legal department processes his giant (hard return) lawsuit.”
“I was making a joke,” she said.
“Did you think it was funny that Hulk Hogan was suing over a sex tape?” Harder asked.
“No, I didn’t think that was funny,” said Carmichael.
The jury also saw another 2015 deposition in which John Cook, then Gawker’s investigations editor, admitted posting an image of an uncircumcised penis.
Cook, now Gawker’s executive editor, said he did it in response to then Editor-in-Chief AJ Daulerio — a co-defendant in the trial — having “posted a joke about Hulk Hogan’s penis wearing a little doo-rag, which is a bandanna he sort of wears on his head.”
Meanwhile, Hogan’s former wrestling foe The Iron Sheik released an open letter in which he used his trademark insult to blast Gawker as “the jabroni of the Earth.”
“THE GAWKER YOU DUMB NO GOOD SON OF A B–CH YOU GET THE CHEAP HEAT YOU DON’T RESPECT THE PRIVACY YOU HAVE NO CLASS,” the Sheik wrote on Esquire’s website.