Hulk Hogan Sues Gawker Again, This Time Over Alleged Racist Comments

Fresh off his $140 million judgement against Gawker, Hulk Hogan is going back for more with a new lawsuit filed Monday.

In a new suit filed in Florida, Hogan alleges that Michael “Cowhead” Calta and Matthew “Spice Boy” Christian Loyd, both employees of Cox Radio, and talent agent Tony Burton sent a DVD of Hogan’s sex tape to Gawker. He goes on to allege that the Cox employees and Burton tried to extort $1 million from him.

“Davidson, representing and acting on behalf of and in concert with the Extortionists, also told Plaintiff’s counsel that the Extortionists … arranged for the 30 Minute Video to be sent to Gawker as a ‘shot across the bow’ as part of the scheme to extort money from Plaintiff,” the suit reads.

Hogan contacted state and federal law enforcement about the extortion, and the FBI arranged a sting operation to capture them.

Gawker filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain the results of the FBI investigation, but Hogan’s lawyers convinced the judge to keep those results confidential during his first trial.

“Gawker, having become aware through discovery in the Prior Action that other surreptitious recordings seized during the FBI sting operation purportedly contained racially insensitive statements by Plaintiff, used the Gawker-FBI Action to try to gain access to video and/or audio footage of Plaintiff making such statements, so Gawker could use such statements against Plaintiff to destroy him publicly and as leverage to try to force Plaintiff to settle or drop his claims heading into a jury trial in the Prior Action,” the suit states.

The suit also alleges that Gawker’s then editor A.J. Daulerio leaked information to the National Enquirer that contained a racist rant by Hogan in which he repeatedly used the n-word.

Gawker Media responded with a statement to TheWrap, calling this new suit “ridiculous.”

“Hulk Hogan is a litigious celebrity abusing the court system to control his public image and media coverage,” the statement continued. “It was absurd enough that Hulk Hogan claimed $100m for emotional distress and economic damage for a story about a sex life that he’d already made public. Now Hulk Hogan is blaming Gawker for racist remarks he made on another sex tape, which Gawker never had. As we’ve said before and are happy to say again: Gawker did not leak the information. It’s time for Hulk Hogan to take responsibility for his own words, because the only person who got Hulk Hogan fired from the WWE is Hulk Hogan.”

Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.