Raw Radio Talk - BTLS listenin' thread July 2015 edition

Quote:

The time line of the four sex tapes, Terry Bollea with Heather Clem (now Heather Cole), then the wife of Bubba the Love Sponge, was in 2006. He was still filming the reality show. He was still married. His daughter was a teenager and for the past few years, he had spent millions trying to make her into the next Britney Spears or Miley Cyrus. It wasn’t working, as even though she was featured weekly as the hot teenage girl on a popular show, she wasn’t quite talented enough or charismatic enough to really sell records. He tried to market her first as the cute fresh faced teenager, or later as the hot sexy girl posing in air-brushed photos in as little clothing as possible, but neither approach fully worked.

Whatever led to his sleeping with his best friend’s wife is a matter of conjecture. Bubba claimed that Terry would drive him crazy asking to do it. The two always had a weird reputation. He was a shockjock and an attention whore in Tampa and he was a local celebrity that seemed to need whatever spotlight constantly being on Bubba’s show would give him. Each used the other for what they had, including Bubba whoring out his wife to his supposed best friend. But even Hogan’s best friends at the time saw problems coming.

It wasn’t that they saw how sleazy Bubba was, but more they felt that Hogan’s best bet to keep his celebrity status would be like Dwayne Johnson. Show up when you’ve got a big project, do tons of media, and then disappear for a long time until the new project comes out, as opposed to never going away.

Bubba turned out not to be such a good friend. He secretly, well, secretly from Hogan, taped all the sexual encounters. In one tape, he’s seen with Heather, basically saying that the tape is worth millions to them if they ever were to need it. In other words, both talked openly about the potential of blackmailing their rich friend (remember that he had not yet gotten divorced at this time, although he did later claim when the tapes first came out that it was during the period between marriages).

Exactly how the tapes ended up released has not fully come out. The belief is that Bubba had bragged to the wrong person about having the tapes, and that person got mad at Bubba, perhaps over a deal, and stole the tapes and then somehow got them in circulation. It led to an embarrassing period, but unlike many who would have laid low, Hogan did all kinds of media, going on the attack against the Gawker web site, which actually released snippets of one of the sexual encounters. Eventually, he filed a $100 million lawsuit.

Interesting take by the Meltz