Hulk Hogan awarded additional £17.5million in damages on TOP of £80million after sex tape leak

Wrestling Icon Hulk Hogan has been awarded more than £17.5million in punitive damages in punishment to a British owned website that published a sex tape of the star. The payment comes on top of £80 million a jury handed to him on Friday after the 62-year-old sued Gawker for posting a secretly recorded video of him having sex with his then best friends wife. 

Hogan, real name Terry Bollea, sued over an invasion of privacy.

On Monday, a jury of four women and two men in St Petersburg, Florida, sat to determine how much the New York-based firm, its owner Brit Nick Denton and former editor-in-chief A.J. Daulerio, should pay in punitive damages.

The additional payment exceeds simple compensation and is given to punish the defendants.

They found the company was liable for £10.5 million, former Financial Times journalist Denton £7million and Daulerio £69,600.

Hogan, dressed all in black including a black bandana, smiled at his defence team on hearing the award.

The video of Hogan had been secretly recorded by radio shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge Clem.

It showed his now ex wife Heather Cole having sex with Hogan.

During the two week trial Hogan testified the video's release in 2012 caused him lasting humiliation.

The longtime star of World Wrestling Entertainment Inc and reality television veteran had initially sued for $100million (£70million) in damages against the New York-based gossip site but the jury awarded more.

The payout is set to see Gawker and its sister titles shut down although lawyers for the company have indicated they will mount an appeal.

Oxford educated Denton, 49, and his former editor-in-chief A.J. Daulerio, who posted the story, sat motionless as the verdict was read out.