Gawker - the snarky gossip site that went bankrupt five years ago because of a lawsuit over a Hulk Hogan sex tape - quietly relaunched on Wednesday, begging readers to have an “open mind and an open heart.”
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Tim Cook killed an Apple TV show about Gawker: report Gawker also instigated bruising fights with Reddit over whether the site’s most notorious trolls were entitled to the anonymity they were being afforded.Deadspin owner G/O Media buys business news site Quartzįirebrand writer tapped to bring Gawker back from the deadįormer Gawker editor withdraws defamation lawsuit against ex-employee There was also this piece (that Gawker later took down), which outed a senior executive at Condé Nast. The website took heat for their “Gawker Stalker” feature, which identified the real-time locations of celebrities. In its 14 years, the Gawker Media openly courted controversy - and not just for sex tape coverage. “It is important for Univision to exit a business which does not enhance our core mission, and instead refocus on our strengths,” said Univision CEO Vince Sadusky in an internal memo on Tuesday. After layoffs and buyouts and a scuttled IPO, the company ultimately conceded that the purchase was a mistake and it would seek to unload the websites. The price raised eyebrows at the time and signaled a Univision’s significant ambition to reach younger audiences in digital. The company passed on buying, which instead ended up in limbo under the care of William Holden, a management consultant. In his zeal to destroy the company, Thiel even considered a number of illegal actions, according to a recent book about the trial.Īlso Read: Univision Looks to Sell Gizmodo Media Group and The OnionĪfter the dust settled, Gawker Media’s other properties, websites like Deadspin, Gizmodo, Lifehacker, Jezebel and Jalopnik, were sold to Univision in August 2016 for $135 million.
His backing allowed Bollea to finance the years-long litigation and turn down numerous lucrative settlement offers. He became secretly involved in the Bollea lawsuit as a mechanism for shuttering the website once and for all. The site ultimately filed for bankruptcy and, when it was all said and done, closed up shop and settled with Bollea for $31 million.įor his part, Thiel, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who was an early investor in Facebook, held a grudge against Gawker after they outed him as gay in 2007. The legal fight began in 2012 after Gawker published a sex tape of Bollea and Heather Clem - the wife of his then-best friend, Florida radio personality “Bubba the Love Sponge.” After years of litigation, a jury in Florida ordered Gawker to pay up $115 million in damages to Bollea in March 2016.
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Univision announced this week that it plans to sell off the sites along with the satirical The Onion, in which it holds a controlling stake.Īlso Read: Gawker Slayer Peter Thiel Agrees to Drop Bid for Bankrupt Site - and Its Story Archive Gawker’s sister sites, including the tech site Gizmodo and sports-oriented Deadspin, were sold off to Univision in August 2016 for $135 million. Hulk Hogan) and his billionaire backer Peter Thiel. Once a powerhouse generating hundreds of millions of pageviews per month, Gawker Media was forced into bankruptcy after coming out on the losing end of a lawsuit brought by ex-pro wrestler Terry Bollea (a.k.a. One of the biggest early questions he will have to address is what he will do with the site’s archives, which span more than 14 years.
Reporter Hamilton Nolan - who publicly warned any future owner of Gawker to tread lightly - called Goldberg “not a smart man” and someone who “mocks himself far better than his critics ever could” back in 2013.Īlso Read: 'Hunger Games' Director, 'Big Short' Writer Join Gawker Lawsuit Biopic Goldberg, a millennial media entrepreneur, is also the founder of Bleacher Report and has been mocked by the company he now owns.
A rep for Goldberg did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Reuters reported that Goldberg paid $1.35 million for the site. The auction was held behind closed doors at the New York offices of the firm Ropes & Gray. , the once mighty flagship of Gawker Media, was sold Thursday to Bustle Media chief Bryan Goldberg in a bankruptcy court auction, a person familiar with the matter confirmed to TheWrap.
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