14 DAY TRIAL // As promised yesterday, the transcript of audio introduced in a court deposition by Hulk Hogan (real name Terry Bollea), in the ongoing lawsuit against Gawker Media, has emerged online. It has Hulk admitting he was “a little bit racist” while discussing his daughter Brooke’s relationship with the son of a black billionaire who had promised to fund her music career.
If she was to date a black man, though he was against it, Hulk said, she might date one who was very tall and very rich, like a basketball player. The guy Brooke was dating at the time of the recording was Stack$, real name Yannique Barker, who was considerably shorter than she was.
As expected, Hogan has apologized. Brooke too has broken her silence, penning a poem in defense of her father, which she posted on Facebook. You can see it in full below.
Context for the racist conversation
The reason Hogan sued Gawker is that they published footage from an adult tape featuring him and the wife of his former best friend. She and her husband set him up and recorded him so that they could blackmail him later.
When that failed, they leaked excerpts to the press, and Gawker stood by its initial decision of putting footage from the tape on its website. Hogan sued, arguing that the video had been recorded without his knowledge and made public without his approval, but Gawker fought back that they were right to publish it because he was a public figure.
In another excerpt from the tape, after the 2 had relations, they discussed Brooke’s new boyfriend, with Hogan saying he was against the relationship - and for that matter, against the idea of Brook ever dating black men.
The transcript is available on Radar Online. Hogan drops the N-word several times and doesn’t cut corners when it comes to making it clear how much he hates black people. He believes everybody is a bit racist like that sometimes, and he’s not ashamed of admitting to it.
Hulk apologizes, Brooke gets poetic
In a statement to People magazine, the wrestler apologizes for the language he used on that particular occasion, insisting that it is not illustrative of who he is as a person.
He’s not racist, he tries to argue; he was simply ignorant and didn’t know how to word his objections to the relationship better.
“Eight years ago I used offensive language during a conversation. It was unacceptable for me to have used that offensive language; there is no excuse for it; and I apologize for having done it,” he says. “This is not who I am. I believe very strongly that every person in the world is important and should not be treated differently based on race, gender, orientation, religious beliefs or otherwise. I am disappointed with myself that I used language that is offensive and inconsistent with my own beliefs.”
Brooke too is taking a stand to defend her father, telling people to think of the joy he brought to his millions of fans through the years before they rush to judge him. We’re all imperfect and guilty of having said or done something bad at one point in our lives, and the same goes for her father.
He is not racist, he is a good person who loves everyone and would do whatever he could to bring everyone comfort in time of need, regardless of the color of their skin. Hulk Hogan is an amazing human being who deserves to not have his life ruined by one isolated incident, Brooke says.