This is disgusting.
Gawker initially refused to take down a video the site had published in 2010 showing a very drunk young woman having sex in a bathroom stall at a sports bar in Bloomington, Indiana, even after she pleaded with the site to remove it. Gawker's initial response to the woman's urgent request, according to the New York Post: "blah, blah, blah."
The story, portions of which were previously documented by GQ magazine in 2011, was dredged up this week in a Florida courtroom, where former pro wrestler Hulk Hogan is suing Gawker, its owner, former editor A.J. Daulerio, and others for $100 million over a secretly recorded sex tape the site published in 2012. The video shows Hogan having sex with a friend's wife.
But it was Daulerio's testimony that shocked the courtroom this week.
On Wednesday, Daulerio, 41, said a celebrity sex tape is not newsworthy only if it involves a child, according to The New York Times. When Hogan's lawyer pressed him on the age of the child, Daulerio responded, "Four." The Times said "a palpable sense of shock rippled through" the courtroom. (Gawker later issued a response insisting his remark was sarcastic.)
The comment came during a taped deposition played for jurors. Daulerio and Gawker's owner, Nick Denton, are expected to testify in person in the coming days, according to Re/code.
On Friday, attorneys turned their focus to the video of the young woman having sex in a bathroom. The video appeared on Gawker's sister site, the sports blog Deadspin, where it was unclear whether the sex was consensual, meaning she was possibly raped. Daulerio was the editor of Deadspin at the time.
After she wrote to Gawker's complaint department urging them to remove the video, Daulerio was forwarded the message with a note from the complaint department saying, "blah, blah, blah," according to the Post. (The Post initially reported that it was Daulerio who issued the callous response, when in fact it was someone else from Gawker's complaint department. The woman never received that response, Gawker said.)
In a separate exchange, Daulerio wrote to the woman, saying they wouldn't take down the video. "The best advice I can give you right now: do not make a big deal out of this," he wrote, noting that due to the video's poor quality she is unidentifiable. "I'm sure it's embarrassing but these things do pass, keep your head up," he added.
The woman responded:
I understand it's blurry but people who know the people in the video can clearly see and know that it is them. I need this taken down … This is very serious and involves a lot more than a simple mistake. You should seriously consider taking this off the website because things like this can spiral out of control.
At that point, the Post reported, Daulerio sought assistance from Gawker's lawyer, who said the video was "newsworthy."
A day later Gawker took the video down, but it had already spread to other sites. Daulerio later told GQ magazine that the woman's father called him in a panic and "had this basic breakdown on the phone." Daulerio said he ultimately regretted running the video.
"It wasn't funny," he told GQ. "It was possibly rape ... I didn't really look at the thing close enough to realize there's maybe something a little more sinister going on here and a little more disturbing."
In an email to Cosmopolitan.com, Gawker offered the following statement about the video:
The decision years ago to link to another site's video of what was believed to be a consensual encounter in a public place was, plain and simple, bad judgment. Despite the initial emails, we quickly took down the link and the accompanying story — as Hulk Hogan's lawyer acknowledged in court.
Daulerio didn't return email or Facebook messages seeking comment Friday night.
