Former pro wrestler Hulk Hogan is currently battling it out in court with Gawker Media over a $100 million sex tape lawsuit. Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, is suing the online publication for publishing a clip of his 2006 sex tape with Heather Cole, who is the ex-wife of radio host DJ Bubba the Love Sponge Clem.
Cole spoke on Wednesday for the first time in court and went into great detail of the several sexual interactions that she and the former WWE star had at her husband's request. Cole, 41, explained that she agreed to have sex with Hogan because Clem had asked her to, along with several other men.
"Did Mr. Clem generally pick who you had sex with?" asked Michael Berry, one of Gawker's lawyers, to which Cole replied, "On the occasion that I had sex with someone other than him, yes."
She went on to explain that her husband enjoyed making videos of her having sex with other men, although she was unaware that she and Hogan were being filmed at the time. She and Hogan had sex on four separate occasions, one of which was in Hogan's home.
"I was asked to go to Mr. Bollea's room by my husband, and I did," she said.
The particular footage that Gawker got a hold of took place in her and Clem's home, and she claims that she did not know that there were cameras present until she saw the footage several weeks later and asked that Clem destroy it.
"At some point after the encounter at our house with Mr. Bollea, Mr. Clem showed me a videotape of myself with Mr. Bollea having sex," she recalled through tears. "I did not watch it. It was brief...I was upset."
Even though she did not know this specific sexual encounter was being filmed, she did admit to knowing that her husband had a hidden security camera in their bedroom. "Bubba had told me that his attorney said it might be a good idea to have a camera in case something ever happened," she added.
As the explicit tape played for the Florida jury, Cole became upset and explained that she believes Hogan is a publicity hound. Hogan has said that this video was an invasion of his privacy and personal life, but Cole thinks he enjoyed the publicity.
"I felt more embarrassed," she said of Hogan's public comments on the tape. "I wanted it to go away...I thought that I didn't have anything to say about it, and I was very hurt, and I felt or wished that the other people involved would behave the same way."
Last week when Hogan took stand during the trial, he explained how the sex tape leak affected his personal life and career. "I felt numb," he said in court. "The news just hit me that they told me that Bubba was on the end of the tape saying, 'Heather, this is our retirement.' My hands started shaking...I couldn't stop shaking. It turned my world upside down. I was embarrassed by what it did to me as a person, but it was even embarrassing as a character. Hulk Hogan was embarrassed."
