Hulk Hogan sex video intended to harm, claim his lawyers

A lawyer for Hulk Hogan said editors of the Gawker website intended to harm the former professional wrestler when they posted an excerpt of a secretly recorded video of him engaged in an intimate sex act.

The online gossip site was motivated by power and brand promotion at Hogan’s expense, lawyer Shane Vogt told jurors in Florida at the start of an unusual civil trial weighing a celebrity’s privacy rights.

“They (Gawker) have essentially replaced sticks and stones with clicks and phones,” Vogt said during his opening statement, noting that 2.5m people had viewed the sex-tape clip during the six months it remained online.