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Hulk Hogan and Nick Denton had a sex tape trial ‘stare-down’
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — He’s faced down Andre the Giant and the Iron Sheik, but Hulk Hogan says the stare he got from Gawker publisher Nick Denton in court is what really terrified him.
“He scared the hell out of me,’’ Hogan told The Post in his first interview since a Florida jury awarded him $140 million in his lawsuit against Gawker, Denton and ex-editor A.J. Daulerio.
“Denton and I had a stare-down. He scared me staring at me, man. He just sat there staring. It was right after his cross-examination. He stood up and stared. It was like he was going to call me out at ‘Wrestlemania.’ Yikes!”
A jovial Hogan, real name Terry Bollea, greeted The Post Tuesday morning at the oceanfront Sandpearl Resort near his Clearwater home, opening up about the case for the first time and later posing for celebratory photos on the beach.
He called Denton a “puppetmaster.’’
“He’s very proud of his buccaneering young stud, AJ,’’ Hogan said.
“They think that just because you have Facebook or Twitter, you crossed the line between normal person to celebrity status. So that means anyone who has anything to do with social media is fair game.
‘Denton and I had a stare-down. He scared me staring at me, man. He just sat there staring.’
- Hulk Hogan
He said that as he heard their testimony during the trial, “I started having, like Oprah has, these ‘aha’ moments. … ‘Everybody’s a celebrity,’ I thought. ‘Oh, my God, they’re gunning for everybody. Everybody is fair game. And then 4-year-olds, too?’” Hogan said, referring to Daulerio’s testimony that he’d post a celebrity sex tape with a child.
“Apparently, [Denton’s] pretty darn talented, I’d love to see these guys do a 180 and just do good stuff and just get legit,’’ Hogan said.
“I don’t know if [Daulerio, who posted the video as Gawker’s editor in chief] really understands how wrong he is. I think some type of experience, if this trial didn’t humble him, then maybe picking up trash on the side of the road might.’’
A soft-spoken Hogan also said he was offered “a large amount of money’’ to settle but decided to stand and fight because, “if I put my tail between my legs, if I take the money but don’t tell the truth or I don’t face [the situation], I’m not going to be able to live with myself. I knew how unhappy I would be. I told my wife, I said, ‘Jennifer, I just got to follow my heart,’ ” Hogan said.
“It’s embarrassing, though, believe me,” the wrestler said of the ensuing publicity.
He described the leaked sex tape and trial as “ the roughest’’ thing” he ever had to go through.
“After Gawker had posted the video, it was almost like when I lived in Minnesota and the sun went away and it was like seven months of being real cloudy when I lived in the Twin Cities,’’ Hogan said.
“I would run into kids who would say, ‘I’d downloaded the Hulk Hogan Wrestlemania video, and Hulk Hogan sex tape came up.’
“I dealt with so many horrible things, people in public asking me about the tape. I felt like I had, all of a sudden I had a heat lamp on me at all times.’’
He said the trial was “very humbling … I went from being 6-foot-5 to 4-foot-5 when I climbed up on that witness stand. I thought, ‘My God, this is really horrible.’”
And being forced to talk about his penis and the sex tape blow by blow didn’t help.
“I tried to keep it in context, what I was dealing with. [The defendants] said it was newsworthy — I felt like I was in the middle of a joke, that they were trying to make something that’s a joke in a locker room with men getting dressed. Then to have to talk about it or be exposed to it was just ridiculous, very embarrassing. It’s hard to talk about this stuff especially when you’re trying to be serious or under oath.’’
Asked how he stayed strong through the trial, Hogan said, “All I did was write for 11 days affirmations: ‘I am victorious. I am grateful. I am highly favored by God and His universe.'”
Ultimately, a Florida jury awarded him $65 million for emotional distress, $50 million for damage to his career and another $25 million to punish the defendants.
“I kind of snorted. Everything like my whole head, like a bucket of water was going to come out of my face. It was so overwhelming. It was almost like I was relieved that they believed me,” Hogan said.
“I was so out of it, I didn’t hear the numbers until we got upstairs. I went, ‘Oh!’ I did the Fred Sanford, ‘Elizabeth, help! Call the doctors!’
“For me, the message is America is tired of this type of behavior, and it’s unacceptable, and it’s illegal. I hope [the defendants] learned what the trial was about: that we were actually protecting the First Amendment and carving out that little piece of privacy.”
His lawyer, David Houston, said, “Our message to them is, ‘You knew better, and you did it anyway and there’s a cost.’”
Hogan, banned by the WWE over racially insensitive comments he accused Gawker of leaking from a sex tape, said, “Those who know me know I’m not a racist.’’
As for his future, Hogan said, “I’m real excited about actually having some time to spend here because before this, actually, it’s been a wild ride the last 10 years, with divorce [from ex Linda in 2009] and accidents and surgeries. I just hope now I can take a little bit of time and enjoy being around my dogs and the beach here and [wife Jennifer, whom he wed in 2010] and do what feels right.
”I just want to make sure financially my wife and my kids don’t have to worry.’’
Asked whether he can change his tarnished image, Hogan said, “Gosh, I hope so. I’m just a normal man. I made mistakes. Everybody deserves a second chance.”
And he wants to call Sylvester Stallone about a role in his next “Expendables” action flick. Hogan also believes he’d be a natural spokesman for Chevrolet — because movie star and ex-WWE standout Dwayne “The Rock’’ Johnson is Ford’s ad man.
As for Bubba the Love Sponge Clem, who secretly recorded him and Clem’s then-wife Heather having sex, Hogan said, “I pray for him.”
And he’s praying for himself, too.
“Everybody has a different journey and a different threshold of how much of a beat-down they want to take, and I’m done, I’m tapped out,” he said.
Hulk Hogan reacts to winning lawsuit against Gawker: