The three times my life intersected with Hulk Hogan’s

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Me and Hulk Hogan (right) in 2011. Screencap via Kotaku

It felt strange to read The New York Times’ obituary for pro wrestler Terry “Hulk Hogan” Bollea yesterday, because of how many parts of it were also about my life.

No, that wasn’t me competing with him at Wrestlemania III.

He certainly didn’t endorse me at the 2024 Republican National Convention.

But this part?

In 2005, he appeared in the reality series “Hogan Knows Best,” along with his wife at the time, Linda (Claridge) Hogan, and his children, Brooke (Hogan) Oleksy, a singer, and Nick Hogan, a racecar driver.

I co-created that show.

And the next two paragraphs?

He was in the public eye in a less savory way in 2012, when Gawker posted the video of him having sex with a friend’s wife that resulted in his lawsuit, backed by Mr. Thiel, whom the site had outed as gay a decade earlier.

Hogan contended that by posting the video, Gawker had invaded his privacy; Gawker said it was newsworthy. A jury sided with Hogan, awarding him $140 million in 2016; the case was eventually settled for $31 million, and Gawker Media filed for bankruptcy.

I ran Kotaku, Gawker’s gaming site, and was there when his lawsuit drove us to bankruptcy and set up an ownership fiasco that kneecapped the site.

In between those two events—understandably unmentioned in the Times’ obit of the 71-year-old wrestler—he demoed me a Kinect game.

I don’t share these details to show off. I’m not sure these are even connections of which to be proud.

But, for many years, they’ve given me an unexpectedly visible opportunity to notice how the lives of strangers interact, about the ways we help determine each others’ futures even as we have the most limited perspectives about what we’ve done. And maybe we bump into each other down the road, and do it again.

I should probably start by explaining how that reality show happened.