Original subtitles

Power 93.

Okay.

Tampa Bay's only all oldies station.

Florida's favorite

country music station.

Tampa Bay's home of rock and roll--

It's been a ton

of commercials and way too much talk on--

This is BRN, the Bubba Radio Network.

- Power Pig. Hello. - Yeah, I'd like to talk to the complaint department.

- Okay. Can you hold on, sir? - Yeah.

I'll transfer ya.

It's No Panties Thursday.

7:05, with No Panties Thursday.

I'm Bubba the Love Sponge,

and my homie Guido on The Power Pig 93.3 FM.

One morning on my drive to work, Brent Hatley calls me

and says, flat out,

"Has Hogan ever fucked your wife?"

There's a still of Hulk Hogan and Heather, and I look close.

Even though it's grainy, I look close and I'm like,

"Oh, that's Bubba's bedroom."

I was like, "Holy shit.

There's a videotape of this and The Dirty has it?"

I said, "Listen, run upstairs and look at my desk

and see if there are, uh, uh, any DVDs

in my locked desk drawer to the left."

"Open it."

I was like, "Bubba, there's no DVDs in here at all."

I knew I was fucked. I absolutely knew

my life was about to change drastically for the worse.

Hulk Hogan filed two lawsuits today against Heather Clem

and her ex-husband Bubba the Love Sponge.

Are you any nearer to knowing who betrayed you?

- At this point, no. You know, we had TMZ. - Yeah.

You know, they're pointing to a very good friend of mine,

Bubba the Love Sponge, and to this day, I would have

to see the tape to believe that.

And I haven't seen the tape.

The videotape starred

Hogan and Heather Clem.

Um, she was the ex-wife of shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge.

Posting a secretly-taped sex video

showing Hogan with his best friend's wife.

A sex video of Hulk and Heather doing their thing.

She was married to Bubba at the time.

I was doing, uh, my daily show preparation.

I have to go through all the news, and boom, here it is

on a website called The Dirty.

First thought that goes through my head is,

"Oh, Heather's doing this to fuck him over."

What is it like when Hogan walks out after he's had sex with your wife?

And, and, like, all of a sudden he goes, "Okay, man, I'll see you later."

I mean, don't you-- Aren't you sort of angry, even at yourself?

The real problem in itself is who the hell leaked this?

- Right. Now, you said-- Listen. - That's the problem.

I guess he feels you leaked it.

"Bubba taped it. Bubba fucking tried to sell it.

Bubba tried to extort Hogan."

Bu-- You know, the only thing I really did wrong

is I let my best friend fuck my wife

and my surveillance tape got it.

I can't think of anything that would make me look more dumb

than leaking this tape.

Here's Bubba, his best friend,

now looks like he sold the tape.

It looks like, you know, he's a cuckold,

that he's letting his wife sleep with anybody and everybody.

And, and now this friendship,

this, this beautiful brotherhood was being shattered.

That day, he called me. He said, "It's over.

And I don't want to be here anymore."

Hogan knows Bubba didn't take that tape.

Didn't sell that tape, didn't give that tape away.

- It was stolen from them. - Bubba was saying, "It's cool."

Honestly, Heather was relentless.

- "I wanna see your thing. I wanna f you." - Right.

- On and on and on. - Um, I didn't go up there and check on it daily. I didn't.

And, and again... joke's on me.

I should have destroyed it immediately.

This was a radio war

that Hogan was used as the pawn.

It is a mystery that has stretched from here to Hollywood.

Who stole and leaked the videotape

that's now at the center of a $100 million lawsuit?

It's... it's a dirty game.

I'm telling you, you guys are...

You're just scratching the surface.

I was born in Warsaw, Indiana,

and that's where I was raised as well.

Well, my sister is my world. Still is to this day.

My mother as well. You know, my mother has been my rock.

Bubba was an awesome kid.

He really was. I don't know what happened.

He put the cat in a ten-pound bag of potatoes in the dryer.

He ate all of your birth control pills.

- He did. - One time.

- And pee on you in the bathtub. - Oh, yeah.

Pee on me in the bathtub. That was a classic.

In fourth grade, I actually wrote "fuck" on the bathroom wall

in Magic Marker, and they just got these brand-new bathrooms,

and it ended up being a really big whodunit.

They closed the whole school down. And to this day,

I don't think they still know who did it. That was kind of like

my very first mischievous thing that I can think that I did.

His room was right next to mine, and he would always be

in his room by himself, performing,

and he'd have the radio on.

And he was listening to talk radio.

And he's in there, doing his own commentary.

And I would be listening.

He would imitate Howard Cosell.

Hello again, everyone. It's good to have you...

He was always the star, though. "He'd score the touch--

- Oh, he's going down the field. There he goes." - Yes.

- And it would always be him. - "Clem for them. Hail Mary."

- Yeah. - But, you know, he always had his own, own shtick,

and it was innate.

And I was a, uh, uh, a bouncer at a club,

and the club was called Jubilation.

And they brought this local radio guy in named Kerry Gray.

Well, I'm like, "Listen, buddy. Uh, I know who you are.

And how hard is it to be on the radio anyway? I can do that."

So, Kerry Gray said, "Well, you know what?

Tomorrow is April Fool's Day."

And he said, "We're gonna bring in common people

off the, off the streets to be local radio personality.

Why don't you come in on my show?"

So, I went in there and I'm watching how all this is operating.

And his phone lines are going crazy.

Here's this fucking nerd that has got all these chicks calling him up.

And so I started hanging out with Kerry

and I eventually got to do overnights,

like 2:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m.

I remember calling my mom up and saying,

"Mom, I can't make Christmas this year."

She's like, "What do you mean you can't fucking make Chr--"

I go, "'Cause I'm on the radio. I'm a--"

My mom said, "Are you a fuckin' idiot?"

He made the announcement. Sat everyone down and he said,

"I wanna be the next Howard Stern."

As I started to hang out with Kerry, we would go

to all these fraternity parties and these sorority parties,

and a couple girls were talking to me.

And so the next day on the air, and Kerry was like,

you know, "103 PFR." Uh, "'Scary' Kerry Gray.

I saw Bubba with some chicks,

and he was soaking up love like a sponge.

I'm gonna start calling him Bubba the Love Sponge.

Bubba the Love Sponge is coming up next."

And I remember he turned the microphone off.

I said, "Don't you ever fucking call me that name again."

"Oh." He was just like, "It's just funny, Bubba the Love Sponge.

You're just soaking up love." I said, "Shut the fuck up. Don't ever call me that again."

"Bubba the Love Sponge. Bubba the Love Sponge. Bubba the Love Sponge."

Thank you.

You know, my early, my early year or two in radio

wasn't really that spectacular.

I was just jockeying records

and, and doing intros for the most part.

Not until I got an opportunity to go to Grand Rapids.

Uh, and a guy sat me down. His name is Greg Cassidy.

And he said-- I can remember we were at the McDonald's in downtown Grand Rapids,

and he said, "Listen, I listened to you on the air, and you're real stiff.

And that's not really you. Why don't you act

like the way you act when we're out, going--

you know, hanging out with the boys, and you're cutting jokes,

and you're making fun of people, and you're cutting on your boys.

Why don't you act that way?"

And I'm like, "Are you sure you want that?

I mean, are you really sure that that's what you want?

'Cause I'd love to do that instead of this bullshit."

And he's like, "Just let it rip."

So, that night, man, I'm like, you know--

That's when I started kind of lettin' it rip.

He calls himself Bubba the Love Sponge,

and he pushes all the legal limits nightly on Power 93.

He's simply disgusting. Why? Because the things he says.

I want her to hand you-- her panties to you

and I want you to sniff 'em live on the radio.

Bubba was one of those guys that pushes the edges.

Everything that I have learned in school about how to do a radio broadcast,

he's breaking every fucking rule.

Bubba was an incredible talent.

Uh, you know, listening to him on the air, you could tell

that he had a real strong command of the art form of being on air.

And, uh, he had the ability to,

you know, really work the guests and, and know how to steer 'em

in the direction that he wanted them to go in to get,

you know, the most entertaining

or the most engaging conversation out of them.

Everybody in town would listen with bated breath in the morning

for what he would say or what he pontificated about.

Wish you guys a happy No Panties Thursday.

Five women just called us about 15 minutes ago,

said, uh, "Bubba the Love Sponge, we don't have our panties on.

We're sitting here, getting buff muff."

At his heart, he's a toxic personality.

It, it would encourage people to be bullies.

It would encourage people to be sexist

and to have these sort of simplistic views.

His voice is annoying, his whole demeanor is annoying.

- Just negative vibes. - But you listen to Bubba the Love Sponge,

the old man on the radio that's got the b**** to really say it like it is.

I'm talking No Panties Thursday. I'm talking lesbians.

I'm talking limos, 1900 numbers.

I'm talking lesbians like...

A guy named Marc Chase calls me. And there's a radio station

in Tampa, Florida called The Power Pig.

"Hey, dude, it's Marc Chase from Tampa, Florida. Power Pig."

I go, "Yeah." He goes, "Man, we need a fucking crazy guy like you at night."

I quickly established myself

as the, as the star of the radio station.

Like, for instance, Brent Hatley will tell you that I love stories

about teachers that are hooking up with their kids.

Not the guys hooking up with the, the female students, but the vice versas.

I think that's pretty hot. I like sports, I like strippers.

Something that I can have a very polarizing opinion about

and really get people churned up.

Bubba admits to being fired

from four radio stations for outrageous behavior.

But keep in mind, he's number one at night.

The bottom line is, is that I have a 15-one share

of the market and, uh, you know, it--

I don't think the advertisers are buying what I say, and my views.

They're buying the people that are listening to my show.

In Tampa in the early '90s, if you would ask a soccer mom

what they thought about Bubba, they'd probably equate him to the Devil.

Maybe Hugh Hefner, but maybe ten times worse.

Why do kids love him and parents hate him?

Stop by your kid's room between 7:00 and 11:00 p.m.

You may find out.

This is BRN, the Bubba Radio Network.

What?

7:06, the new sound of The Pig,

BTLS, Bubba the Love Sponge.

Go ahead, uh, ma'am.

Um, I really like your station, but I think that,

um, the foul language, you need to cut out on that

until, like, ten o'clock, because I have two young kids,

and I like to listen to the station, and all you say is

s***, a******, bitch.

We don't say those words. Only you're sayin' 'em.

We're, we're gonna see if we can have them donate the panties,

and we can put them on our microphones so we can talk

through them all night long.

Little, little soiled panties on the microphone.

God, I love that.

Whether you love him or hate him,

Bubba was one of the best broadcasters of all time.

But since joining The Power Pig in the fall of '92,

he's picked up more than that.

His ratings have been phenomenal,

making him the most listened to radio personality in the Bay Area

and the most controversial.

You-- You're wearing, you're wearing panties now,

- but you'll take them off for me? - Yes.

In observance of No Panties Thursday?

- Yes. - Cool. Let's go.

♪ Break it down Break it down, break it down ♪

The first panties of the evening usually go on the head.

Now, we'll go to the head first.

Next ones go up on the... Excellent.

Damn, dawg, them are some nice panties too. I ain't lying.

His style, between the gangsta rap and the top 40 dance tunes,

Bubba dishes out a steady diet of raunch and outrageous humor,

usually at his callers' expense.

He, you know, was very edgy, and he had a very good way

about being edgy and compelling at the same time.

- Power Pig. Hello? - He's on trial with furious parents

like Lydia Duncan, who no longer allows her young teenage daughter

- to listen to Bubba's show. - He has no teenage kids,

and I hope to God I'm around to see him when he's got a 14-year-old little girl

that wants to do some of the nasty stuff that he has tried

to talk these kids into on the radio.

He's on trial with women's groups

who say he's foul-mouthed and sexist.

Uh, he's got a very destructive behavior.

It's, um, it, it, it's violence against women.

And he, uh, tears at us, at our dignity.

And he's on trial with the American...

He is the... probably one of the most talented

radio guys in the history of radio.

He knows content. He knows entertainment.

He knows how to piss you the frick off.

He knows how to make you feel good.

He keeps you on your toes.

You'll never get bored. Never get bored.

So, I met Mike Calta

in, like, 1993, '94.

I was doing nights in The Power Pig, and he was this, uh,

promotional guy that hung banners at, you know, various remotes and things.

And, uh, big kid, bit hea-- big head.

So, I, I brought in him to, you know,

just kind of be my schlep boy.

And I called him "Cowhead." He--

'Cause his fucking head's ginormous.

That kind of transition into when Clear Channel,

Clear-- iHeart, Clear Channel, Jacor,

when they bought 98Rock and transferred me

from night times to morning drive,

I brought "Cowhead" Mike Calta with me

to be a, a producer/co-host. Quickly thereafter--

That happened in December of '96.

And, and, uh-- oh, this is while we're--

I'm doing, doing mornings now at 98Rock.

He's an executive producer. He's, in my opinion,

not doing the things that I want him to do

to prepare me for the show.

And at this time, uh, about 1999,

I'd met Brent, uh, who was, uh, doing promotions

for the classic rock station in our same building.

I didn't have the discipline to go to college,

and I ended up going to the Marine Corps in 1989.

I served in the first Gulf War, which was Desert Shield,

and Desert Storm. Came back to the United States.

I was stationed in Southern California.

I started going to school at night for pre-law.

Howard Stern comes on the radio in July 1991.

The career, uh, planner comes to me and says,

"Hey, are you ready to re-enlist in the Marine Corps?"

I was like, "No, I'm going to go do radio,

and I'm gonna go get paid

to look at hot chicks and talk about sex."

I come back home to Florida in 1993, and everybody tells me,

"You gotta listen to this guy, Bubba the Love Sponge."

I was like, "Man, that fucking name sounds weird."

$400 for 100 extra shots.

$400.

Fuck!

They were like, "No, he's nuts." I'm like, "I'm a Howard Stern fan."

Like, "How is he better than Howard Stern?"

- I turn him on. - It is really rude.

And it's beating up on people too.

If you don't like what I do, don't listen.

But I like the music.

Well, go buy some CDs.

During the two weeks we worked with him,

he put in a host of personal appearances,

whacked off his mane of hair, and nearly killed himself

after heaving his 300-pound body

out of an airplane in a skydiving stunt.

♪ I'm true to the game It's the bottom line ♪

♪ It's Bubba, bitch And I'm out to get mine ♪

And that's what Bubba does. He gets ratings.

And, and it's not-- I mean, we're,

we're not here to be a babysitter for--

I mean, parents have that responsibility.

But I can't stop listening 'cause this guy is shot out of a cannon.

Out of control.

Well, he was, he was working for this guy named Ron Diaz.

Ron Diaz is this huge legend in town,

and they decided to him on in mornings, uh, on 103.5,

and they asked Brent to be his executive producer.

But Ron played a lot of music and stuff, and it, it wasn't really

a lot to do as an EP then. But I had my eye on this kid.

So, the vibe I got with Brent was we just clicked better.

It felt as if he might fit in better on the show.

Uh, so I went to Management

and asked if I could make a change.

So, in April 2000, I made that change.

Uh, fi-- fired, uh, Mi-- Calta and hired Brent.

So, I became the assistant promotions director at 98Rock

and started working my way up in the radio business.

Matt Loyd, uh, joined Bubba

as an intern when he was 19 years old.

My relationship with Spice Boy started out

as he, you know, was a drop-- a high school dropout.

And I kind of saved him, or the show kind of saved him from being--

I don't know, maybe giving him some purpose in life or...

I loved the kid. I never had a problem with him.

Never did I have a problem with him.

They called him Spice Boy

'cause the Spice Girls were,

were, uh, popular back then.

And, um, he was a really young-looking guy

that a lot of the young girls that liked the show liked him.

So, he was called Spice Boy, and he kind of filled that role

of a good-looking idiot on the show.

And he's a guy that would come in

and basically do anything.

Like, that's kinda how he made his name on the air.

He'd come-- Anything Bubba needed him to do on air, he would do it.

You know, he would do stunts, and he got his penis pierced.

I mean, like, anything he wanted to do. Bubba wanted him to do, he would do it.

And he was like my little brother or my son.

I have very many instances of on the air where Spice Boy admits

that I was of-- a more of a father-like figure to him than his real father.

He worked really hard on the show. He really did, and he put in a lot of hours.

So, um, when-- Even when Cow-- He worked there when Cowhead

was the executive producer. And, and Calta was the executive producer,

but Spice would do the, the majority of the work.

I absolutely loved that guy.

In April 2000, I joined Bubba's show full time as a full-time show member.

Bubba is amazing when it comes to finding talent,

and if they, they don't have the chops, he is able to teach them

and, and get them to that point where they can be professionals.

Everybody at the radio station becomes a character

on theBubba Show. The salespeople.

I make stars out of people right off the street.

Brent, Manson, you know, 25, Spice Boy.

I absolutely love it here. I mean, this has gotta be the best show to work for.

- We always have the sex... - The limits were never established with us.

You know, in fact, you know, Bubba really was doing crazy stunts like Jackass.

Well, in front ofJackass.

Jackass, you know, started in 2000,

and Bubba was doing those crazy antics in the '90s.

And the same thing with Girls Gone Wild.

Girls Gone Wild didn't really become popular until the late '90s.

Bubba was doing No Panties Thursdays

and, you know, 12 Boobs of Christmas,

and all these crazy, you know, Girls Gone Wildtype antics.

So, you know, Bubba was Girls Gone Wild before Girls Gone Wild

and he was Jackass before Jackass.

The ratings would come out and I'd be like,

"Am I number one?" They're like, "Listen, until you hear from us,

you're, you're number one, so don't fucking worry about it.

In fact, turn it up."

All right, here it is.

Let go. Let go, now. Let go, now.

Now. Let go.

Oh!

After, after you do time in jail, you're--

- Fuck out of my-- - ...asshole.

Oh, it's on! It's on!

Oh! Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!

♪ I ain't got much But that's the way it goes I'm a failure ♪

♪ Yeah, maybe So I just live my life now You call it a trend ♪

♪ But I'ma stay this way Till the very end ♪

♪ White trash That'd be the life for me ♪

♪ White trash That's all I'll ever be ♪

♪ White trash That'd be the life for me ♪

♪ White trash That's all I'll ever be ♪

- ♪ White trash ♪ - ♪ It's the white trasher House party crasher ♪

♪ Y'all don't wanna Mess with me ♪

♪ I'm pulling up to the party On a gray ten speed ♪

- ♪ Saying, "What up, dawg? It's Big B"... ♪ - ♪ Oh-ooh ♪

We were number one by far.

We made it sound like partying in Tampa

was the fucking coolest thing you could ever do.

Like, Bubba owned a nightclub in Ybor City,

and we'd be hanging out there on Saturday nights.

The community loved us. The ratings reflected it.

♪ White trash ♪

He's out! He's out!

He just banged his head on the ground.

And because of all that fun,

when it came time to help somebody in the community,

when we said, "Hey, like, this is a serious thing

that we need to take seriously in our community,"

the fans got behind us.

I had never, like, seen anybody

do that type of, uh, fundraising

that he did for the fallen officers.

I've had donations from as far as the Netherlands,

um, Anchorage, Alaska,

all six of my Florida-based terrestrial stations,

and then, uh, my nationally syndicated show on SiriusXM.

Hundreds and hundreds of people have come forward

to help during this tragic event.

Sara Kocab and Kelly Curtis received $26,500 each.

Their smiles spoke volumes.

Their hugs full of emotion and appreciation.

Bubba wanted to always personally hand that check to the widow.

The Bubba Army is really intense.

It gets to be a bit much.

Whenever you went somewhere, they would support you.

Incredibly loyal.

He's been such a force in this area,

not only in radio, but across the board

as far as charity work and things he's done here.

Bubba is such a nice, gregarious type of guy.

Like, he would have fans to his house.

You know, I always wa-- was trying to think of that little guy

from Indiana, the common guy, and I give him a voice

or stick up for him because nobody sticks up for them.

I've always been labeled the People's Hammer.

I got this idea from a sheriff, and he would go

and put these signs in these bad guys' lawns during Halloween

so that the kids wouldn't go trick or treat there.

- You want to do something? - What gives you the fucking right? Huh?

You know why? Because you touch kids, buddy.

I probably do stuff like that

that the average guy doesn't do,

but the average guy wishes he could do.

Bubba is very sensitive and respects the law.

Respects truth.

Uh, when he's on to something,

he's not going to, to, to give you a song and dance.

He's not gonna give you a bullshit story.

Sometimes you don't wanna hear the truth.

The truth hurts sometimes.

But doing that type of fight for information

and for the people and for public knowledge,

and to tell the truth, what more do you want?

He would often make the thing that he asked the Army

to get engaged in or look at,

number one or number two on Google search.

It really was amazing at the time,

the power and the reach

that Bubba had with the Bubba Army.

Bubba was constantly getting in trouble.

The biggest antagonist in Bubba's life

is, uh, Bubba himself.

He sometimes didn't think law applied to him.

Bubba admits to being fired from four radio stations

for outrageous behavior.

People are very love him or hate him,

and it's very an intense emotion.

Oh, Okay.

Give me that tape. Give me that tape!

At his heart, he's a toxic personality.

And a lot of that stuff would come out in the radio bits that he would do,

and it would encourage and validate

that kind of behavior for his fans and his listeners.

He gets involved in things that he shouldn't get involved in.

He was never afraid to pick fights

with local politicians, with local people in power.

Mark Ober, the state attorney at the time,

had a real hard-on for, for Bubba.

He, he just hated him.

Bubba had provoked him by challenging him

on, on various cases

that he was prosecuting or not prosecuting,

and made fun of him.

He went after Bubba hard.

I am really the only guy in Tampa over the years

that would hold any, uh, politician

or anybody accountable.

He had no fear challenging power,

and he challenged Mark Ober.

And Mark Ober made it his personal mission

to destroy Bubba and anyone in his circle.

Most of the damage that he did on the decisions that he made,

it affected him the most.

If you go back to the history of time...

And I don't care if we're going back to Pontius Pilate,

I don't care if we go back to Elizabeth in England.

Any time you're in a position that's not in power...

...you run the risk-- when you start shooting at the king,

you better kill him.

So, he thought it would be funny, and I, I agree,

to have people scrape up roadkill.

And bring them in, and we were gonna, you know, barbecue them up

- and make people eat 'em. - And, and put it on the grill,

and we'll give you Marilyn Manson tickets.

It was a segment known as The Roadkill Barbecue.

A listener brought the pig to the radio station parking lot.

It was held down, castrated, and then its throat was slit.

Animal rights activists are outraged.

The "what the fuck" moments with Bubba were often.

He's just digging up more things to argue about.

I mean, if he's gonna cause this much trouble,

maybe he shouldn't even be on the air.

I cannot believe that there are people out there

who would actually allow discussing

things like this being aired on the radio.

You know, there are just days you're like...

"Why? Why? Why would you do this?

Are you fucking stupid?"

On my sound effects button bar,

it's the sound effects of pigs being fed.

And they're mad as hell. They're going, like...

We were piping that in as the hunter was gonna be

like, "Okay, we're gonna kill Andy."

The hog bleeds out. So, police officers show up.

The sergeant talks to me and says, "Hey, what's going on here?"

I, I tell him. He's like, "Okay."

He reads the statute, I read it with him.

He's like, "You're right. There's no violation of law here at all."

"No problem, Officer. Got it. In fact, how would you guys

like to stay and have, uh, pork sandwiches with us for lunch?"

"That sounds amazing." I get a call at home.

"Listen, you got to turn yourself in by ten o'clock tonight

at the Hillsborough County Jail." I'm like, "For what?"

"Felony animal cruelty."

We do the perp walk into the building.

We go, go there at seven o'clock.

It looks like the OJ trial.

I'm like, "Oh, God, look at all this."

Media got there at 6:15.

The reason we had to be there by ten

was so the eleven o'clock news

would have the pictures of us going to jail.

And that's what Mr. Ober intended.

When it went across Mark Ober's office,

he decided to prosecute me.

I was, in my mind, thinking,

"My son's not gonna go to prison over a pig."

The State of Florida came to Clear Channel and said,

"If you fire Bubba, this all goes away."

I sat in that room

and Mark Ober said,

"Fire Bubba,

or I'm coming after you guys criminally."

He and I sat alone together,

um, holding hands, and he said,

"If I lose, they're taking me to jail today."

I was sitting next to Bubba, and he had a toothbrush in his pocket,

and he was prepared to go to prison.

The hunter came in and testified and said that that pig

was slaughtered exactly the way you slaughter a pig.

So, the jury, while they're served ham sandwiches,

uh, over their deliberations, and they come back

and they find us not guilty.

Uh, all four of us, they find us not guilty.

There have been so many injustices towards him,

um, that you could make a movie out of.

Uh, you know, the news media, they interview Mr. Ober.

He says, "Oh, I'm not afraid of Bubba."

I saw what power was trying to do to this man.

Bubba pointing out faults and issues

that he thought were real issues

with facts that people would listen to

was terrible for people like Mark Ober. It was a spotlight.

So, when Bubba was doing that,

that's what made Bubba great.

You know, Bubba's ability to be the hammer for the man,

to be the guy that was gonna hold people accountable.

Bubba and I, to each other and on the radio, was like,

"I don't care if it takes us to our last dying breath.

We're gonna get this guy ousted, out of office.

We are going to get him voted out."

The FCC would impose their largest ever indecency fine against a broadcaster.

And we got fined $755,000 for seven different things.

Bubba the Love Sponge cost his employer,

Clear Channel Communications, $755,000.

That is the highest FCC fine ever,

following a radio sketch featuring a couple of cartoon characters,

a crack house and some prostitutes.

Clear Channel promptly fired Bubba.

It was a big meltdown.

Now, our agent, Tom Bean, because we got fined first,

was telling us, "Just listen.

Everything's gonna calm down. Just relax."

There really wasn't any due process.

There really wasn't any-- anything

other than, uh, Clear Channel laid down.

Uh, said, "We did it, and we'll get rid of the problem."

But then the Super Bowl happened very shortly.

I wanna say it was the week after we got fined.

The Super Bowl happened, where Janet Jack-- Jackson

and Justin Timberlake do this whole performance,

and, uh, Justin Timberlake rips off her costume

and you see her exposed breast

for 150 million people on the Super Bowl.

And that was it, you know. You know, that was the point

where, you know, our agent, Tom Bean, was like, you know,

"You're kind of screwed now,"

because the whole country was upset.

Nipplegate really cranked the FCC up even more,

and there was a big push politically at the time

for the FCC to crack down on broadcasters,

on indecency in the public airwaves.

This really shined a much bigger spotlight

onto Bubba's $750,000 fine.

I'm a 30-- 38-- soon-to-be 38-year-old man

that is an entertainer. I, I do a adult-skewing,

men-based show for 20 hours a week,

and I don't have the, the luxury of having the visual effect.

So, I have an audio effect, and some of it is smoke and mirrors

and some of it is sound effects. And, and sometimes

there's a lot of hyperbole and parody, but it's not illegal.

- Yeah. - Nah, it shouldn't be illegal in this country.

Now, if it was rated X, it's illegal.

My show is nothing more than rated R.

You can go to any rated R theater.

You can go to any rate-- You can watch anything on--

My show is Jackass with a little bit of South Park.

That's what my show is.

In fact, the FCC was talking about applying pressure

to broadcasters to meet the FCC guidelines,

which, by the way, are ridiculous.

They're completely uninterpretable.

It's government guidelines that talk about community standards

that are open-ended and ambiguous

to try to understand.

If you can understand

what the FCC guidelines are, let me know.

'Cause I don't know anyone that really understands

what the FCC guidelines mean,

including the FCC.

It was surreal

just watching the whole country

melt down over jokes on the radio.

I hope that subcommittee will, um, understand

that the Bubbas of the world and the Howard Sterns of the world

are the exception rather than the rule,

and that, uh, they will no longer have a platform on our stations.

As an industry leader, I help...

I hope to help lead the way in cleaning up our airwaves.

It was a, it was a big snowball avalanche

that just came down out of s-- out of nowhere.

And we went from, you know, being the number one

most listened to show in Tampa, syndicated all throughout America,

to... fired.

Now we have a term for it. "Canceled."

Well, we were the originals getting canceled.

That was the original cancel culture, was, uh, canceling shock jocks

saying bad words on the radio.

It was bad for two years. I mean, we were out of work.

We were blacklisted for two years.

I was scared. I had a kid.

I-- you know, I just, I just had Tyler.

He was two.

I had-- was living a lifestyle.

I live in a big house and, you know, living the lifestyle

of making a lot of money.

Because we got fined and fired,

that made Howard Stern pay close attention to us.

Howard said, "I'd like to meet you guys."

He goes, "We have a list of shows that we want to work with

on this channel, and you're the only name on that list."

"Holy shit!"

He called me at work

and he said, "Are you sitting down?"

He said, "I'm going to New York tomorrow

to talk to Howard."

And I said, "Wait. TheHoward?"

Bubba joined Howard Stern on satellite radio

and built a national following.

And it was just the Wild West.

Howard, uh, was the guy that decided

that he wanted Bubba on the channels.

Tom, does your daughter really have kidney stones?

Yes. She has kidney stones!

Living by the rules of the FCC

and then having those restrictions lifted,

it was like breathing fresh air.

You were able to do things that you never

were able to do before.

You know, we did some very controversial stunts.

Hardcore stunts.

Get them out of my fucking dick!

Shit hits the fan.

Did you get shit, did you get the shit on you?

Pubic hair burrito.

We would put, you know, 5000 fire ants on a man's testicles.

As soon as we get an air seal tight, put them up in there good.

Slide them in there.

So, it even sounded that much crazier audibly,

you know, when you would hear a guy go...

Motherfucker!

We kind of even took Howard's stunts

to the next fuckery level. And Howard would be like,

"Bubba, man, you guys are shot out of a cannon.

I don't, I don't know that I could even do that here."

- Do you want women to listen? - I was number one

with persons 12 plus. That encompasses women as well.

Believe it or not, a lot of women listen to my show.

Not every woman is a-- you know, is June Cleaver.

There's a lot of women out there that act like you and I off camera, Kathy.

We were talking about nip-tuck, you know. Come on.

Um, Livestock was an annual,

uh, outdoor rock festival that we had at 98Rock.

Uh, and it was a huge,

like, 300-acre-- acre field in Zephyrhills, Florida.

I was scheduled to be at Livestock, and I had

this woman who had requested to do an interview.

She did a local television show.

Her name was Heather Cole.

And, uh, I saw a picture of her.

I was like, "Wow, this bitch is hot."

So, I forgot all about it.

And I come rolling up at 4:00,

and she's loading up her equipment, mad as hell.

She'd been out in this field for three hours, waiting for me.

You know, I saw her and I'm like, "Holy shit.

You should have been here at 1:00, on time, you dipshit."

So, we do the interview and then we get done.

And three doors down,

they're getting ready to go on stage.

And so I asked her, I said, "Hey, why don't you be my guest?

And we watch the concert together."

And we did.

We kind of started, you know,

hanging out and hooking up,

and, and I fell in love with her.

Baba proposed to me under duress, maybe.

I'd gotten this ring for her. I had it for a while.

I-- he had had the ring for many, many months

and showed it to me and to his sister and to his mom.

And pretty much anytime someone came to the house, he would show the ring to them.

Because it was a pretty kick-ass ring.

And I said, "Well, listen. You need to ask me

if you're gonna, you know, take this out

and show it eve-- to everybody."

One day I got up, and I was in my underwear.

She was getting ready, getting her makeup on.

I just walked up and said, "Hey, will you marry me?"

And I said yes.

TheBubba the Love Sponge Show.

Are you ready to shock your mornings back to life?

Hey, yo, Bubba Army. What's up?

The original OG member from the Army right here.

Hulk Hogan, the greatest of all times

want to welcome you to the greatest show of all times.

You know, I started to meet celebrities in The Power Pig days.

We're here at East Bay. Just got here. And my best friend

in the whole wide world, Hollywood, Hulk Hogan. Check some...

Hulk Hogan and Bubba's friendship

was front and center.

They were best friends.

You know, they were super close.

You know, they confided in each other, you know,

things that only best friends do.

They were as close as friends could be.

- Come here, bro. - There's a maniac. Come on, give me some.

- Let's get some axle grease on that mohawk, brother. - All right.

He was really nice to all of us. Like, he was a good guy.

Like, told me stories about Andre the Giant.

Affectionately, we called him Hootie. Like, we had a nickname for him.

Like, we hung out with him all the time.

Check some air pressure. - Dizzy knows more about cars

than most of the drivers.

I would get off the air at ten o'clock.

I'd be at his house by 10:30. We'd work out.

We'd ride motorcycles, we'd ride jet skis.

I mean, we were inseparable.

Well, I, I think, at one juncture,

you, you know, I joked with him, uh, you know, that, you know,

were they gay for each other?

It was, uh, kind of funny.

Uh, Hogan, uh, is, is the godfather of my son, Tyler.

Terry and I had a-- always a 24/7 tether into each other.

His phone call never went unanswered, and neither did mine.

We were so relaxed around him because of Bubba's friendship

that you would lose sight

that this guy is one of the most famous people in the world.

Hogan's a very smart guy, and he knows how to work.

And he's like, "Hold on. Here's a radio guy

that seems pretty cool, that's over."

Meaning, "very popular in my town that, uh,

that we can make one hell of a dynamic duo."

And we did, man. We ran this town.

My wedding, I actually had people come up to me and said,

"Man, that wedding was just so fucking cool."

And there's celebrities that were there.

Just the overall vibe.

Our kids were involved.

You know, I had Howard Stern,

Hulk Hogan, Robin, and Fred,

and Kerry, and Artie.

For Heather and Bubba!

Honest to God, deep down, I'm so happy for you guys.

And, uh... this is one of the coolest experiences of my life,

and, uh, and I'm, I'm happy to be a part of it with you guys.

- So, congratulations. - To the bride and groom, thank you for having us.

And I want to wanna say that the bride is way too hot for the groom.

And it was clear that the minister wanted to bang the bride,

but we'll overlook that. That was a little creepy.

It was a fantastic wedding.

And, uh, Hulk Hogan should take off his durag.

It's a little inappropriate.

And so it was just such a very special moment.

And this is my best friend in the world...

...no matter what Brian Knobbs says.

Uh, when I first met Bubba, I hated his guts

because he was on The Power Pig.

He was saying all these dirty words

and all these derogatory things in the Tampa Bay area

that all of us rednecks from South Tampa had never heard before.

But then I met the guy, and I realized that, you know,

he was a great person, and nothing like the radio personality.

We became very good friends, and he's one of the only people in this world

that I trust with my children.

To the greatest couple in the world,

Bubba and Heather, we give you our love.

We love you to death. If there's anything you ever need,

you know who to call, brother.

Toast to Bubba and Heather.

Hogan. Hogan, Hogan. No, no.

You know that's a problem around here.

People won't tell you what you really need to hear.

"Oh, Hulk Hogan, whatever you want. Whatever you--" Bischoff. Everybody.

I'm gonna tell you right now. You were the best man at my wedding.

You're the godfather of my son.

I've been in the surgery rooms for you.

I've watched them put knees in you.

You can't even get out of your chair half the time...

I always had a really--

a great experience with Terry.

He was like a big brother. Uh, a brother.

I mean, Bubba was now getting a national audience

and was, was with Howard,

and it definitely was more of a, a one-way friendship

in the sense that there were often times it wasThe Hogan Show,

not theBubba the Love Sponge Show.

Hogan cal-- starts calling the show every day,

sometimes two or three times a day, to the point

where it's, like, starting to get to be bad radio.

Mm-hmm.

Okay. Yo, this is Hulk Hogan, the greatest of all times,

in my little, teeny-teeny-weeny--

Brooke Teeny is doing the baddest mixtape around

from the 305 to the 954.

I'm gonna come down and bitch-slap Spice and Brett when I come in.

Bubba gave him carte blanche.

I mean, he could do whatever he wanted on that show.

- He could call in whenever he wanted. - His daughter--

He was trying to get Brooke's music career off the ground.

When they called, called that number and all the boats came in

and the people from VH1 freaked out because, uh, her video

went to number four, which is crazy. I mean, it's like

the Bubba Army, they're so powerful.

It's crazy.

Bubba, you know, got on the air,

talked about it, drove people to drive

to watch that video, and it went to number four.

I think it was a mutual relationship, you know,

and, and beneficial to both of them for the most part

until it wasn't beneficial for Hogan.

You know, Hogan, you know, like anybody else-- you know,

the most important person to him was, was Hogan.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Maybe Bubba sometimes could have learned a little bit of that

and made, you know, himself the most important person than other people.

Sometimes it would've been better for him.

But, you know, Terry, uh, was true to himself.

Hi. Come on in. Welcome to our house.

Heather Clem, she was so into Bubba and was

so on board with his lifestyle, which was not normal.

We were all on board, and we were--

You know, if, if Bubba loves her, we love her.

Okay, you're gonna follow me to the laundry room

because I'm Cinderella at this house,

and I do all, like, the cleaning, and the laundry,

and the cooking, and all that stuff.

That's usually what I do on Saturdays.

So, come on. You can watch me fold some laundry.

I had no beef at all with Heather

until what happened happened.

So, Bubba had a video security system in his house,

inside and out, obviously for security purposes, number one.

Because being somebody that's highly polarizing like that,

you've got to really have your security systems tightened up.

Somebody said that they were touched inappropriately

or anything like that happened, he would have a videotape of it.

Um, and Bubba was very proud of that.

Anybody that came to his house, whether it was Hulk Hogan, or Tony Stewart,

or whoever came to his house, he'd walk them around the house

and go, "There's cameras here, there's cameras here.

I got a control room here. Check this out. Look at this control room.

You can see outside. Blah, blah, blah."

Like, he would show you.

I had seen articles

over the years where, you know,

popular person A has consensual sex

or, what, hangs out with somebody.

And next thing you know, because there was no documentation

or no surveillance, or it was their word versus their word,

and, uh, I wasn't going to be caught in a trick bag

where I didn't have some type of surveillance or proof,

that I didn't do something, you know, very wrong.

Like, because I was a bachelor,

you know, living a rock star-type life,

uh, I installed a surveillance system.

Early on in representing Bubba

and getting into his inner circle,

I realized that it was wrought with dangers.

Uh, there were death threats against Bubba.

I never felt like I needed cameras in my life.

I never felt like I needed a gate around my house.

I, I just never felt that.

Until I started working with and for Bubba.

Iconic pro wrestler Hulk Hogan and his now ex-wife Linda

appeared to be totally in love on their VH1 reality showHogan Knows Best.

But they ultimately split in 2007,

which resulted in a bitter divorce battle.

You agree with me that Linda's entitled

to 50% of the marital assets, don't you?

I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not gonna make any...

Well, then, how can you say she's a money-grabbing bitch

if you don't know the law?

Well, I have seen what she's asking for.

I've, I've seen what her expenses are.

And somebody who spends $7000 a month on clothes,

and somebody who, uh, spends the kind of money that she spends,

which is reported in the newspaper, that I was privy to

and everybody else, um, that was just mind-boggling,

for the things that she thinks that, uh, she should have to live on.

I'm, I'm over this crap, bro. - Man, I cannot believe

- how she could-- - I am not, I am not the bad guy in this situation.

I am over it.

Hogan's going through a divorce, and he was broke.

His body was broken. His heart was broken.

I'm trying to work to pay the bills

for all these 19 million lawyers

and all this crap that's going on, and, you know,

it's almost like they're trying to derail me, so I can't work. I'm over it.

When Terry was going through his divorce,

it was just probably the darkest time for him.

Um, I know that he had talked to Laila Al-- Ali once with a gun in his hand.

Uh, a gun that I, oddly enough, bought him as-- for a birthday present.

But he was just in a really, really dark, dark, dark space.

Um, he was drinking a lot.

Uh, Linda had him just all flipped out.

They were going through a nasty divorce.

He needed a job. He needed money.

He was living in an apartment, and his finances were a wreck.

He was being sued.

And Bubba brought him into his house

and cared for him,

and, and so did Heather, for that matter.

So, so Bubba really took care of him.

Like, Bubba was one of his last only friends.

A lot of people in the wrestling business

didn't like Terry at this point.

Bubba had an apartment at his house

that was upstairs. Had a kitchen, had a nice bedroom,

had a fucking movie theater in it.

And he let Hogan stay there and live there for as long as he wanted to.

He got Hogan a, a car deal with Stingray Chevrolet, so he had a car to drive.

- When I went through the divorce... - Yes.

...I actually stayed on the far end of their house

in their spare bedroom 'cause I had nowhere to stay for a few months.

- Wow. - I was mentally out of my mind,

rattled over all the craziness.

Hogan's in a dark place, and Bubba and Heather,

together, come up with the idea

for, um, Heather to have sex with him

to, like, cheer him up and make him feel better.

They discussed it, agreed upon it ahead of time,

and then approached Hulk Hogan with it.

The videotape starred Hogan and Heather Clem.

Um, she was the ex-wife of shock jock Bubba the Love...

...posting a secretly-taped sex video

showing Hogan with his best friend's wife.

Hogan was videotaped having sex with the wife

of shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge Clem.

A sex video of Hulk and Heather doing their thing.

- She was married to Bubba... - So I call him and say...

..."Okay. Uh, hey, Bubba, did your wife fuck Hogan?"

He's like, "Uh... yeah."

"You did what? You let your wife have sex with Hogan?"

In the tape, it's taken completely off of surveillance cameras

that were set up in the home of radio host Bubba the Love Sponge Clem.

Um, and Gawker published just one minute and 40 seconds of this tape.

But we have now found there-- there's some additional information,

because Hulk was saying that Bubba has anything to do with this,

uh, that friendship is over.

In a press conference Monday, Hogan's attorneys say

the Clems knowingly took the video

and leaked it in an attempt to make money.

And then I was like, "Well, how the hell

did somebody get ahold of that tape?"

Because I knew, um, I knew

Bubba would never have had a hand in that. I knew it.

And I just kept racking my brain.

Who the fuck took this tape?

Was it Brent? Was it Spice? Was it Manson?

Was it 25? Was it Russ? Was it Hamill?

And I trusted-- I genuinely trusted every person that worked for me.

I genuinely-- you know, they had keys to the building.

They can come and do work on the weekend.

I could not figure out,

for the life of me, as to how this was disseminated.

The real problem in itself is who the hell leaked this?

- Right. Now, you say-- Listen-- - That's the problem.

I guess he feels you leaked it.

Well, I would, I would hope that he would help me,

or I could help him, or we could go on our own and find who did. Becau--

- Do you know who did? - No, I don't.

Because I wish I could. I wish I could find that.

- Well, who has access to those tapes? - I don't know.

Initial reports, and, and even Hogan

initially thought that I leaked the tape.

There's just no advantage for me to le-- leak that tape.

Why would I want to expose my best friend and my wife

through whatever our little kink was?

- Why would I want to do that? - He planned all of this.

"I'ma film it and then I'ma put it

so everybody in the world can see."

So, he tried to make it seem like,

in my opinion,

that somebody stole the video from him.

And that's how it anonymously got to this Gawker Media source.

Bubba then sent the clip off to someone else,

who then published it for the world to see.

- Didn't Bubba sell that tape to Gawker? - Must have done.

We started trying to figure out how it happened

and, and how it had been taken.

Then they go through a divorce. This nasty divorce.

Bubba, unlike Hulk Hogan, had an ironclad prenup.

And those DVDs, he feared,

would have given her that leverage to get more money.

My reasoning for keeping said surveillance

was because I didn't know if Heather had it or not,

but I was afraid that if she had a copy of it,

then she could manipulate it in some way, shape or form,

and I get blamed for it.

In his estimation, bringing 'em to work...

and locking 'em up in his office, where she never was,

is the safe place for them to be

'cause she doesn't have access to them,

and she can't use them as leverage for money.

But I didn't destroy it. I put it in my office.

I'm assuming everything's-- up there is okay.

Nobody really has a key to even get up there.

My attorney said, "You need to destroy this thing."

And, God, had I just listened.

Had I just fucking listened.

I'm walking down the hallways of Cox Media Group,

and I hear some people, like, laughing,

and I hear people doing their... you know,

their typical Bubba impersonation.

And I was walking down the hallway, heard some laughing.

I looked in, and it was Mike Calta

and Matt "Spice Boy" Loyd in his office.

I thought maybe this was something new that they had found,

but the video was not being played

on a website or from a news story.

It, it was definitely being played off a media player-type thing.

What I'm saying is, I know what I saw, and if I--

if that story would have already been out there,

I would have heard about it, is what I'm trying to say.

The most famous wrestler in the world

now taking on Gawker inside a Florida courtroom,

suing the website for posting a 2007 video of him

having sex with Heather Clem, the then-wife

of his former best friend Bubba Clem.

Hogan, seeking $100 million

for the alleged invasion of privacy.

Now, I'm still working for Cox at this time,

so I didn't really know who did what

until about five or six months prior to the Gawker trial,

as to how all this shook out.

When Hogan was suing Gawker,

and I'm in depositions,

they kept asking me during--

the Gawker people, "Do you know Mike Calta?

Do you know Tony Burton?" I'm like, "Well, yeah."

Uh, "Would they have access to this?"

And based on the questions they were asking me,

I was able to piece it together.

So, after the depositions with Gawker, I got in my car,

and as fast as my fat little fingers could dial my phone,

I called my agent, Tom Bean, up and I was like,

"Tom, I know what the fuck happened now."

Part of it was that the Tampa Bay radio scene had distilled

this sort of shock jock mentality in a way

that a lot of other radio scenes hadn't done.

It's one of the fiercest radio markets in the country.

Very, extremely competitive.

And there might have been other markets where there were one or two jocks

that were considered, quote, unquote, "shock jocks."

But we had a, a radio market where there was something like

five or six people who, who were doing that kind of stuff.

And so they would talk about each other because they knew

that the, um, competition and the friction

would gin up, you know, fans of both jocks.

That, that shows you how, that shows you how stupid you are, my friend,

because I talked to 25 about it.

...don't have to talk about you to remain relevant.

What happened to all of your failed markets?

You are unsuccessful in every one of them.

This company rolled out the red carpet for you

and you shoved it right up your ass.

You ruined everything. You--

I find this to be a sad day 'cause this is not

about the First Amendment. This is not about free speech.

And so some of it was obviously genuine.

Some of these people obviously hated each other.

Uh, but some of it was also good for business.

And so, and so you take the fact that,

you know, the shock jock genre is kind of distilled

in the Tampa Bay area.

It's good for business, for them to fight each other.

These people are toxic, so they hate each other anyway.

And you have, you know, all the makings for a situation

where you could have a lot of awful stuff go down.

The radio market in Tampa Bay, for decades, hands down,

I don't even think there's a debate about it, is and has been

the most competitive terrestrial radio market there is.

The level that it's gotten to in Tampa Bay is almost unbelievable.

Pull out the heavy artillery and do everything you can

to get the person off the air, and probabl--

Best scenario, throw 'em in jail.

"Cutthroat" is, is almost being nice about it.

Since Bubba really came on the scene in 1992,

he really had dominated the Tampa Bay Area, you know, broadcasting.

He was number one by leaps and bounds,

above anybody else in the entire market,

up until he got terminated by Clear Channel in 2004.

Then, when he started with SiriusXM in 2006

and didn't come back to the Tampa Bay airwaves,

I think all of the Tampa Bay terrestrial broadcasters

breathed a big sigh of relief,

knowing that they weren't gonna have to compete

with Bubba the Love Sponge anymore in Tampa Bay,

because clearly they could not be successful

competing against him because he dominated.

We do, you know, SiriusXM exclusively

for 2006 and 2007 out of our own studios.

We're doing great. We're on Howard 101.

Howard does mornings, we do afternoons.

In late 2007, Cox calls Tom Bean up,

and they're interested in us doing mornings

on one radio station here in Tampa, 102.5, The Bone.

I knew I was gonna have to do-- end up doing two shows,

which was gonna be exhausting, but the money was just unbelievable.

Okay, we're back now with Bubba the Love Sponge,

who returns to radio 102.5, The Bone, uh, FM,

- here in Tampa and also in, uh, Jacksonville. - Yeah.

Okay, well, uh, it will be interesting to watch.

Uh, Bubba's back. You can either run for your lives

- or cover your ears or, or listen in. - Or both.

- All right. Very good to have you on Flashpoint. - Don't forget our bet.

All right. You bet-- Well, it's on videotape.

- No denying it. Thank you. - Thank you, buddy.

So, we agreed to do mornings on 102.5, The Bone.

And, and don't forget, we replaced Calta.

When, you know, Bubba was being, uh, looked at

as a replacement, it was interesting for it to be

the replacement of Mike Calta's show.

We signed a deal with Cox to return back to terrestrial radio

via The Bone, uh, and in the first,

I don't know, 30 to 40, 45 days,

we were already number one in almost everyday part.

And that's when things really then started to get exciting.

No. No.

- That would kill somebody. - That'd be awesome, you know?

So, you're not trying to kill them. You're trying

to let them think that they're gonna be killed.

And if they just give us the information.

Yeah, you want to find out where...

You know, we were dominating

our, our, our, our hometown.

And then, at that point, we're talking syndication.

You know, other, other cities as well.

Having been off the air for four years,

had no promotion, had switched

to the broadcast medium of satellite radio,

I don't think anybody really expected Bubba to do particularly well.

The ratings for terrestrial radio, radio

come every week and they're put into books.

Each book, you know, is, uh, approximately a month,

and there are three books to a quarter.

In Bubba's first full book back,

he took 102.5, The Bone, from essentially last place

in the marketplace to number one over the MJ Show,

which had been his long nemesis before.

It made my competitors and people within my company hate me.

I mean, that's where the animosity of Calta came from.

You know, we, we would be number one

and afternoon drive would be, you know, tenth.

Bubba! Bubba! Bubba! Bubba...

They asked me when I was doing my deal,

"Do you want us to get rid of Calta?

'Cause I know you guys had a long kind of--"

And I was like-- Probably one of my biggest regrets

is me-- 'Cause Tom Bean asked me.

Tom Bean actually tried to get me to change my mind.

He was like, "Are you sure you want to do that?"

And I'm like, "Yeah, whatever. What the, what the fuck?

I mean, who cares? I'm done with his bullshit."

Boy, I was wrong on that one.

You know, Bubba was good at rubbing it in your face

that he was kicking your ass.

Trying to remain relevant? Are you kidding me?

Have you looked at the ratings? Have you looked at the ratings today?

Remain relevant?

Remain relevant? Re-- remain relevant?

You're only good as your last book.

You're down, you're down 61%.

So, he was good at pouring salt into open wounds.

And then when he came back in 2008, it was just like,

"What do we have to do to kill this motherfucker?"

Every contract negotiation we had with Sirius

was always a big pain in the ass.

Always just down to the last minute.

Every time we negotiated with him, it was never easy.

And finally, the final one was just downright disrespectful.

Our final contract offer was, uh, an 80% haircut.

From a million bucks to 200,000.

Bubba's popularity on SiriusXM...

...at its peak...

...clearly was a threat to Howard Stern.

You know, why would anybody want to have...

...somebody that could garner

almost as good, uh, uh, ratings as you can

- for pennies on the dollar? - And here we are, killing it.

We have the most, most call volume,

we're, we're-- we work in five days a week.

We're doing mornings on Friday

on Howard's channel 'cause he wouldn't do mornings.

And rather than to say, "Hey, you guys make a million now,

we're gonna give you, you know, a little bit more" or--

"Because we appreciate you."

Howard and Don Buchwald are out to protect Howard Stern

and Howard Stern's earning ability, and Howard's rights,

just like my job was to do that for Bubba.

So, that's just doing what they're supposed to do.

But at the end of the day, clearly, you know,

when you're second best and there's somebody

that has a reason to want to not have competition...

...you don't want to have competition.

I think that offer had a lot to do with us doing better

than a lot of people had anticipated we would do.

When they had to take the pay cut whenever they were renegotiating with Sirius,

man, oh, man, Spice made the biggest deal about taking a pay cut at that time.

And you could see it. Like, Spice was the one guy

that just went hard into the paint.

He was very, very materialistic.

If somebody else had something, there--

you could always tell there was jealousy there.

He is money-obsessed,

um, and he doesn't really understand

the business end of it. He really doesn't.

After this, even Spice Boy's style on the air

became much more angry, and bitter, and personal.

I think, early on it was

a mentorship-type relationship.

I think there was a time period, as Matt got older

and more experienced as a broadcaster,

where Matt started to smell himself a little bit

and started to think that he was just as capable as Bubba.

And he became very jealous of Bubba,

and he thought that Bubba was fat and stupid

and "How could he be successful?"

You know, "I'm smarter, I'm good-looking.

I'm a better host."

Bubba was writing a book.

I don't even know if it even came out.

And they made, uh, everybody on the show

write a foreword, uh, to Bubba's book,

and, and, and, Spice Boy was just brutal.

Man, he said some of the worst stuff.

Like, I, I-- when I, when I heard, uh, Spice talking about it,

I was like, "Oh, this is not gonna be good.

Bubba is going to blow his top."

I think Matt started to think that he could be

just as successful, or even perhaps a better broadcaster than Bubba.

And their relationship changed when we lost the contract

or we didn't renew with SiriusXM.

Matt Loyd blamed Bubba, and it were those types of things

that started to cause some financial, uh, losses

for the support cast forBubba Show too,

because the show wasn't, you know, bringing in

the same revenue that it was before,

that there started to be some resentment.

I find out that he's leaving March of '12.

It's a very emotional time. He was like my,

he was like my little, like my little brother or my son.

I remember that was the first time I actually saw Bubba cry.

He was really, really upset

that he was losing Spice Boy at that time

because he was gonna be leaving Bubba's show

to go do nights at the new FM talk station.

But Bubba gave him his full blessing.

He was like, "Man, you're gonna be good at this.

You're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna grow,

you're gonna do your own thing. And I wish you all the luck.

You're always welcome back."

You know, when... deals changed

and the remuneration went down,

and people had to take less money,

you know, Bubba's decisions didn't just affect Bubba.

They affected everybody that was in Bubba's world, Matt included.

At the time, Calta was doing 3:00 to 7:00,

and then coming on right after that would be, uh, Matt Loyd Show.

So, they would see each other every day, being able to talk.

And I think the plan was not having Bubba in the building,

having Matt Loyd over there as well too.

The whole thing is, "Let's work together.

Let's get Bubba off the morning show

here at 102.5, The Bone.

I'm gonna take mornings. You're obviously gonna

move up to 3:00 to 7:00 afternoon drive."

I think them being able to see each other every single day,

they were able to work together.

Not being in the building,

I never really knew would be that big of a deal.

I mean, I thought that we would be out of mind, out of sight.

The only thing that really mattered was the type of show we put on

and the ratings that we garnered.

I never knew that that enabled people who didn't like us

or were jealous of us to just start a--

like, a little mini whisper campaign and...

Bubba had made the decision to replace Mike Calta

with Brent Hatley sometime around 2000.

That created a bunch of animosity

between, you know, Mike Calta and Bubba then.

And anytime Mike Calta would run

into a problem or an issue, he would blame Bubba for it.

You're a big, fat, cross-eyed cuckold is what you are.

Anything else, Mike? Anything else?

It's nothing really relevant.

"Man, Bubba's really hard to deal with,"

and "He'll never come to the studio."

And "We ask him and, you know, he just-- he, he has

so many other affiliates, and he does an afternoon drive show."

And "He thinks he's all that," or "He's, he's got a big head."

And, and that's not, that's not--

wasn't our mindset at all.

We were, you know, kind of rewarding ourselves

and having our own facility because we weren't just

a Bone, Cox product.

We were more global than that.

Mike Calta had an ax to grind with Bubba.

Why would he stop having an ax to grind?

In this instance, Bubba was replacing him,

moving him from the coveted morning spot

back to afternoon drive.

It gets very cutthroat, trying to get to mornings.

That's every good radio person's goal, is to get to mornings.

And some people, um, are willing to do anything to get there.

In Tampa, you have people suing each other,

trying to get each other arrested.

There's all kinds of things going on to grab this morning slot

on these major companies, these major signals in Tampa.

It's, it's like nothing else in radio.

It was Bubba getting over on Mike Calta again,

and Bubba letting him stay and continue to work

at the same radio station

in the same, uh, broadcast facility.

That Bubba Show was being originated, to me, didn't make any sense.

It was letting the fox into the henhouse.

Why would you do that?

Um, had I known of the cancer that that created,

by not being in the building, I would have really made it

a bigger effort to be in that building more often

and talk to the people more.

This sex tape was their play

to get Bubba off the air for good.

They were trying everything

to get him off the air and throw him in jail

because they can't beat him on the air.

They-- I mean, they can't.

So they have to cheat.

Many of us, myself included, remember watching

Hulk Hogan's exploits in the ring as a pro wrestler.

But today, we saw him fighting in an entirely different arena.

In court, on the stand,

taking on the website Gawker over a sex tape.

Hogan had announced that he was going to sue

Bubba, Heather and Gawker for $100 million.

WWE Superstar Hulk Hogan,

whose real name is Terry Bollea,

took the stand today for the first day of testimony

in his lawsuit against Gawker.

The first knowledge...

...that I heard that there was a tape out there

was some still images came up...

...and TMZ called me and said,

"Hey, there's a rumor that there might be a, a tape out there."

Guess who's beloved in this community.

Terry Bollea.

And he was not a terrible victim,

he was a real victim.

First up, the defense, putting former editor-in-chief

A.J. Daulerio on the stand

and Hogan's lawyers hammering him

on his reasons for posting that tape.

It's not out-loud laughter, no, but it is a smirk. Yeah.

- It's very serious. - At points, Daulerio even seeming

to contradict part of Gawker's defense

that the tape was newsworthy

and their decision to publish it,

covered by the First Amendment.

And just because two adults had consensual,

uh, interactions or relationships

and somehow it was perverted into this, it would be different today.

Nick Denton, the founder of Gawker Media,

stands by his company's decision to post that video.

This has got nothing to do with privacy.

Uh, this is all about publicity.

Uh, the sex tape had been talked about. Uh, he didn't like our story.

And another thing that Dan Abrams just said, I agree with,

and I've said from the get-go, they have to believe Hulk Hogan,

because if they decide they don't like Hulk

or they don't believe him, his entire case is right down

- the toilet. Everything. - Gawker want-- Gawker wanted--

Bubba the Love Sponge's ex-wife, she's on the stand.

She says she is the real victim in this case.

Her name is Heather Cole.

She claims she had no idea

she was being recorded.

Guess it must have been the husband.

She was having sex with her husband's best friend

and had no idea she was being recorded.

Heather was Clem's wife.

Bubba Clem asked you, and do you recall

- what your answer was? - I said I would.

Come on.

I mean...

Please.

If this jury believes that Hulk Hogan is lying

about how this happened,

I think that could impact damages.

'Cause I've said again and again, if this juror ha--

If these jurors hate Gawker,

that could be really dangerous for Gawker.

If these jurors don't like Hulk Hogan,

- that's not helpful for him either. - How about this--

If I agree to do something that's lawful

and I put it on a piece of paper or a tape

and someone steals it, that's theft.

If that theft affects my life, that's damages.

That's punishable.

That's actionable. I am at a loss.

Why we're here all these years later with a videotape,

and there was never a single person who was punished?

That's what's wrong with our justice system.

This is exactly the vindication that he and the lawyers wanted.

He's also been awarded $115 million by that jury.

It took them six hours of deliberation to reach this verdict.

And it was a very happy Hogan and his lawyer

that were outside the courtroom after the verdict was reached.

Mr. Bollea's exceptionally happy.

This is not only his victory today,

but also anyone else who's been victimized

by tabloid journalism. We're coming back Monday

for the rest of it, and we thank you all for your interest.

- There's absolutely no doubt that the decision we made... - Yeah.

- ...was absolutely correct. - If we were all in the same circumstances,

- how would we feel about it? - Did any of you think

- that he might have been behind that tape? - There's still no right

- to put that out there if he doesn't want it put out. - Right.

He's very charming on the stand,

um, but he's been shown to have lied on the stand

as much as-- uh, he's a charming liar.

We were a bunch of honest jerks.

You know, I may have fucked up a, a lot of pieces

in this puzzle,

but there's one thing that I didn't do.

I did not leak that tape.

I would have preferred that that tape stayed in my desk

and never been viewed by anybody.

And only three people in the world know about it.

Heather, Hogan and me.

It destroyed Bubba as much as it...

Well, uh, did it really destroy Hogan

or did it make Hogan bigger and richer?

Bubba had so many levels of betrayal on this,

and, and Hogan knows it.

And so, you know, if Hogan's watching this,

I say to Hogan, "It's time to forgive."

Not only did he originally think that I leaked it,

but everybody thinks that I leaked it.

To this day. Ask anybody.

When Hogan approached me

about the screenshot that was on The Dirty...

...um...

...you know... I lied to him.

I lied to him because I was reckless.

I relied-- I lied to him because I was embarrassed.

If I could go back,

I would have never captivated that moment.

I would have never transferred it to a DVD.

I would have just let Terry and Heather enjoy themselves.

And that's all.

You know, receiving material that's been stolen from somebody

is, uh, is a big, uh, problem.

And, you know, if you're a journalist

and that material is the Pentagon Papers

or that material is something that has

tremendous journalism value

to the general public,

um, then you might think about publishing something

that has been, uh, you know,

taken, uh, without consent or without permission.

But something like this,

something personal that was stolen from someone,

um, you know, that-- that's the, that's the other thing

I think that would have kept me from publishing it,

was, was knowing that the material came to me

because it was stolen from someone.

Do you believe your battle with Gawker

has gotten lost behind the talk

of how much money the jury decided to award you?

I don't think so.

I think the public feels the same way I did.

And so I think that makes, makes a huge statement.

"Is that a big enough number?"

Um, maybe not, but it should be a deterrent for anybody else

who ever tries to do anything like this not to do it,

that you will be held accountable.

It made me a little bit sick. I don't know how he can sleep at night

knowing that he's got the money for doing what he did.

Um, I would've been honest with Terry.

Not been a pussy, not been a s-- little scared bitch like I was.

And maybe the outcome would've been a little bit different.

Maybe I could've actually have participated

in getting the bad guys that did this

and still been the piece of shit that recorded it.

But maybe... be more on Terry's offensive side.

And, uh, if, if I had the opportunity

to tell him I was sorry, I would.

Keith Davidson... was a Hollywood attorney

that brokered... hush money gag-type agreements

between the people that were involved in these things

and the people that purported to be the owners of the material.

I get involved when a situation or a, uh, relationship has gone bad.

If you look historically, you know,

in any time in the US or any country,

there are folks who have been able to get in

as a part of what they do

in their profession is, is to be fixers.

That is when people get in a bind.

They hire people to, to clean it up.

If you go back to the, you know,

the old-school sex tapes,

um, when they first started coming out

and they were, quote, unquote, "stolen" and things like that...

Keith Davidson, he was behind a lot of this kind of nefarious stuff

that was going on on the fringes.

Their job is to go and try to make it better.

Now, there's a couple ways you can do that.

Number one is you lean on relationships.

Secondly, you, you have the people that you know

that you can call on to negotiate and broker deals.

When you look at people like this,

it's part of the fabric of our society.

And he had a long history of doing good work.

"Good work" means getting people's situations taken care of.

And in our case, his involvement was to solve a problem.

And that problem got solved.

Yeah.

Once it ends up on Gawker, then Keith Davidson,

on the behalf of Matt Loyd, calls David Houston,

who's Hulk Hogan's personal attorney,

to tell him that they have these DVDs

and they want $300,000 from Hulk Hogan for it.

So, then Hulk Hogan and his attorney contact the FBI.

The FBI records the next conversation

that Keith Davidson has with David Houston.

And then the FBI is there in Clearwater

when Keith Davidson shows up with a proxy sent by Matt Loyd

to extort, extort Hulk Hogan, which completely goes awry.

Yeah.

So, on December 14th, 2012, I'm at the Penthouse Club

doing an appearance for the radio station with Brent.

That's when the FBI is doing their sting operation at the Sandpearl,

and Lori Burbrige and Keith Davidson are nose down,

being arrested,

and Matt Loyd has the audacity and the balls

to come into my personal appearance

and "Oh, Bubba, congratulations on being divorced.

Oh, Brent. Oh, hey, miss you guys. Miss you guys."

His wife is pregnant. His wife is pregnant. Tasha is pregnant.

Stayed about five or ten minutes.

While this sting is happening at the Sandpearl restaurant,

he then drives across the street

to the International Mall, International Plaza.

Real fucking fancy mall.

And that's where he ends up--

the FBI ends up arresting him.

So, literally five to ten minutes

before he got arrested at the International Plaza mall,

he had came, came and said hi to me and Brent at the Penthouse Club.

That's how much of a maniacal motherfucker he is.

So, Matt Loyd steals the tape and he comes up with the dumbest plan ever.

So, they first go to TMZ, get 7500 bucks.

TMZ publishes nothing. They just talk about it on the air,

and they get Hulk Hogan on the air and talk about it.

So, then Loyd goes to Mike Calta at The Bone,

who then contacts his agent, a guy named Tony Burton,

who works for Don Buchwald and Associates in New York City.

Tony Burton contacts Gawker,

an editor at Gawker named A.J. Daulerio.

Then Tony Burton sends an email to Calta of the address to send it to.

And then the tape winds up with A.J. Daulerio...

on his desk, at the address that Tony Burton,

Calta's agent, emailed to Calta

and told Calta, "There's where to send the tape."

So, now it gets published on Gawker.

Not really worth anything.

I mean, other than causing Bubba problems,

which is what they wanted to do.

I think he was planning to leave

and planning to become a broadcaster in the market

and compete against Bubba.

And I think, before he left,

he started looking for material

that he had access to

that he thought he could use,

that could potentially put Bubba into a bad light.

The problem with their plan was...

...Matt Loyd has no ability to really observe... anybody else

and understand who they are.

'Cause if you understand who Hulk Hogan is

and you've been around him for five minutes...

you know that that's not--

that South Tampa motherfucker is not somebody

that you want to try to extort,

because you will never extort a dime out of fuckin' Hulk Hogan.

Now Hogan is looking to recover the balance of the damages

from the people he believes leaked and sold that video.

According to court records, it was a conspiracy

involving shock jock Mike Calta, Loyd,

Cox Radio and a few associates.

You know, after the Gawker case

and Hogan brought the case against Cox and Mike Calta...

...that case never went to trial.

They filed that second amended complaint.

It had all of that data that showed the emails,

the telephone conversations,

dates, times, who, when, how, where.

Again, it became... uncontrovertible.

There was no question that they had it,

they distributed it,

and that many people knew about it.

Hogan says he was a victim of radio wars

between Bubba and those rivals

who wanted to eliminate Clem as competition.

And that there was a conspiracy. There was a plan.

And that plan was enacted to be able to remove Bubba,

to put Mike Calta in the morning spot

and Matt Loyd in the afternoon drive.

It's simple. That's, that's what it was.

All of that was put in place

so that they could get what they wanted,

and they leveraged, again, what other people wanted,

which was to have Bubba silenced.

Gloria has been on this from the beginning. Read the entire investigation.

- So, Gloria, what did you learn? - I learned a lot.

But keep in mind, on Friday, we first reported that the State Attorney's office

here in Hillsborough County decided

not to file any charges in this case,

and some are really questioning, "Why?"

In 2012, Davidson tried to broker a deal

between Hulk Hogan and Davidson's client,

who was trying to make money off a sex tape

showing Hogan having sex with his friend's wife.

Davidson wrote the confidential settlement agreement,

saying the sex video would be handed over

if Hogan paid his client $300,000.

Hogan's attorney called the FBI.

So, David Houston says

that the payment

to prevent the tapes from being released

is because it's damaging stuff,

and that by executing these agreements,

meaning the payment,

to prevent the tape from being released...

...would allow Hulk Hogan to be-- get control

of those tapes and the videos.

It's, it's, it's clear throughout this conversation

that the point is to control the damage.

The extortion is designed

to make him pay to control the damage.

This is not a legitimate business transaction by any means.

Th-- this involves property that was stolen

from, from Bubba Clem,

property that, that is humiliating to

and embarrassing to the people depicted in the tape.

Hulk Hogan and Heather Clem.

It's not what this is. This is extortion.

Who released the video to Gawker?

And at any point, did you ask that it be taken down?

You know, the release of the video is kind of a long, complicated story.

We know it went from a DJ in Tampa to a fellow

- by the name of Tony Burton here in New York... - Yeah.

...who then arranged to get it to A.J. Daulerio... at Gawker.

So, nothing good from this has happened in Bubba's life.

Since the day of the settlement, his life has continued

to go into a downward spiral, unfortunately.

Telling the truth in this situation didn't set you free like they say.

Tampa police revealed details of their investigation,

- and they are explosive. - Yeah.

Detectives say Matt "Spice Boy" Loyd

is behind it all. The former employee

of radio star Bubba the Love Sponge, they write,

quote, "stole several sex tape DVDs from Bubba's office."

Then they say, "Sold the clip to TMZ to," quote, "build interest."

And despite the feds having videotapes of it,

where Hulk Hogan was in a room next to it and money was being offered for the tape,

they don't do anything about it.

It seems to me that they've identified the person

who actually stole the tape.

Uh, they have, uh, clear evidence

of an extortion attempt.

When you have a case that's presented to prosecution

that's kind of, uh, gift-wrapped like this one,

you would think that they would, uh, aggressively pursue it.

So, I'm, I'm at a loss to explain this one.

It's offensive. It makes me so angry

to the core to this day that nothing was done

when you have a case on a silver platter served to the prosecutor.

In a lawsuit, Hulk Hogan alleges that Calta conspired

with other Cox employees

to leak a secretly-recorded sex video

with Bubba Clem's wife,

a video that ruined the wrestler's career.

You can still be charged under the conspiracy statute,

um, if you're part of this partnership

or you're part of this agreement,

you're part of, like, the group that is kind of working together.

Hillsborough State Attorney Mark Ober refuses to prosecute.

Ober says he isn't sure he can get a conviction.

But what is strange here is that there were arrests made.

And so, in my experience, uh, when the FBI makes arrests,

it's done in conjunction with conversations with the assigned prosecutor.

And so if the arrests are made,

but the case never proceeds to court,

something happened in the interim.

Whenever there were, uh, big events of other things,

the telephone calls and emails between Calta,

Cox executives and Tony Burton went up dramatically,

and they would be at pursuant to the information that's out there

all crazy times.

Late at night, early in the morning.

Clearly, people were aware of what the plan was.

I mean, Calta and Cox... they are the boogeyman.

They are the bad guys.

They're-- and they got away with it scot-free.

Other than the big paycheck they had to write Hogan to go away.

There was communications with all of those people.

Mike Calta, Cox,

various management of Cox, uh, Tony Burton.

And were communicating about how to manage that information

and what the plan was to do with it

to get the outcome that they looked to have.

Mike Calta's ultimate goal was to get me thrown off mornings

on 102.5, The Bone, because he wanted that job.

That's the prestigious job to have,

uh, and he wanted to do mornings.

He could never-- he doesn't have the talent or the ability

to get that job on his own, so he had to take it from me.

I'm more flabbergasted

that Mike Calta is still employed by Cox.

I mean, I don't understand how any of these people

keep their jobs when they're clearly brokering stolen... product.

Yes, TPD, um, did reach out to me, and they were great.

The detective on this case, Detective Schlemmer,

was just unbelievable.

There were several attorneys that went on to say

that this was one of the most thorough, wrapped-up cases

they'd ever seen. It was gift-wrapped.

Every T was crossed, every I was was dot-- was dotted.

And Detective Schlemmer just really put a lot of time and effort into this.

And he really, really felt strongly about this.

I was at the racetrack, getting the track ready,

and my, and my phone rings, and, and he just said,

"Hey, I, I got, I got horrible news.

Um, these cases mean

as much to me as a detective as they do to the victims.

And when I have something that I feel so strongly about,

uh, get no process, or get chucked out to the weeds, or not taken..."

He goes, "You know, I take it seriously too.

And I've been told by the state attorney that they're gonna,

uh, file no charges on Spice Boy/Matt Loyd.

Um, and, uh, there's really nothing you can do about it."

Mark Ober, the p-- the highest lawman of this area,

the, the state attorney

who decides who gets prosecuted, who doesn't,

uh, he's the one that has determined that I,

at that particular time and period, didn't have any rights.

I don't, I don't, I don't roll around Tampa

with the same rights that the average person does.

So, yes, my rights in this town are completely smashed.

Um, I have no rights in this town.

Well, the odds of winning when you're on trial

against the local municipality or the US government,

you know, uh, they don't go to trial unless they're gonna win.

They have huge percentages.

I'm 4-0 with jury trials

because when I get in front of a jury,

the group of people, my peers within my community,

they know how bad I'm getting fucked with.

They know this is a shakedown.

When all the evidence comes out, they realize, "You know what?

This is just, this is just the government fucking with Bubba the Love sponge."

Essentially, what happened is that Brian Albritton

was the former US Attorney for the Tampa office.

And when he left the government,

uh, he then represented

Keith Davidson in a pending federal investigation

involving the Tampa US Attorney's Office...

...which was then leading-- being led by, by Robert O'Neil,

who, when Brian Albritton

was the US Attorney, was his top deputy.

Okay, so what I'm describing there is what's called the revolving door,

where, where people leave the government,

go into private practice,

but then on the other side,

engage with their former government agency.

And when you have someone that's been in your seat,

been a former prosecutor that understands the other side too,

and is now gonna point out to you

the flaws in your case that you know exist,

but when they say it to you, it amplifies and echoes in your head and you go,

"I don't wanna be publicly embarrassed."

It's an easy thing also

when you find that victim in your mind unsavory.

Yeah, it's, uh-- any sane-minded person

will look and see and say, "Something,

something ain't right in the mix."

One of the best things that you can do as a defendant

is to connect with someone who has the eyes, ears,

hearts and... minds of the prosecuting authority.

So, when you had a situation with Keith Davidson...

...who's not a dumb guy...

Very savvy.

Got really good counsel.

So, if you're going to look to try to avoid

a criminal prosecution in a federal case...

...who's the best lawyer?

Who's the best fit to broker an explanation

of what happened to not get indicted?

Oh, I-- I know.

The former US Attorney.

He laid out a wonderfully written--

I mean, it was... 50 pages of the background

of all the dirt and bad problems that Bubba's had.

It made him sound someone that couldn't be trusted.

The way that he was able to craft,

as good lawyers do, that story,

to a fellow coworker who's now the US Attorney...

"Hey, I've been in your shoes. You want to take a pass on this.

This is why. And you can trust me 'cause you and I,

US Attorney, former US Attorney, the current US Attorney,

go back three decades.

You don't want any of this."

Now, the state attorney's office did release a statement to us

a short time ago, saying, quote, "We reviewed the case in great detail.

The TPD report is only part of the overall investigation.

We came to the conclusion that we had

no reasonable expectation of success in prosecution."

Now, Bubba also reached out to us earlier today, saying,

quote, "I think my rights have been violated,

but who's gonna listen to me?

Nobody can fight the good old boy network."

And the good old boy network is just the good old boys.

The, the state attorney, and the sheriff, and the mayor, and the--

they all meet, you know, on Friday nights, uh, down at the Dominoes Club.

And, uh, you know, this, this in-- influential, uh, entrepreneur,

and this business owner. And everybody's got an insider

to people that make, you know, very important decisions.

Some of those decisions involve, you know, whether or not

to press charges on somebody.

That's the good old boy network.

And... it's a tough network to crack.

And Bubba's real problem--

when we get down to the brass tacks of it all,

Bubba's real problem was he's on the public airwaves

in Tampa, holding local public officials accountable.

And lots of different times.

From the state attorney and Mark Ober.

Bubba was a big critic of Tampa's city council.

He was a big critic of the mayor's office.

This is a tale as old as time itself.

And if you're on the inside,

that means, with relationships,

you get that very important thing called information.

You can trade stocks with it. You can buy land with it.

You can make investments with it.

You can make decisions to join or not join a company.

All that comes from that information,

and that information is shared by the people that have it.

Bubba's career as a disc jockey has always put him

on the outside of the good old boy network.

Why? Because he's a little bit like a scorched earth guy.

Anything in his path gets burnt to the ground.

Now, the good news is, when he's right

and brings the bright light of his radio show

to focus on an injustice,

it works.

But along the way, he's got a wagon full of enemies.

They're waiting for him to trip up,

step out, make a mistake so they can pounce.

You know, really, my problem started

when I questioned Mark Ober

in his lack of prosecution, uh, over, over a couple of kids

that could have been charged as adults,

but he chose to charge as juveniles.

So, God forbid that you're allowed to question anybody.

And if you question anybody or anybody powerful enough

around this good old boy network town,

then you just get put in the bad guy list

and they fuck with you nonstop.

And that's where all of this has started.

I mean, that's where the lack of prosecution

for Calta and Spice Boy started.

I mean, this whole sex tape. It-- it's a no-brainer.

In this case, you had a US Attorney

on one criminal charge.

You had a state attorney with a long history of dislike.

Come on, Mark. Mark.

'Cause he'd literally been taking body punches by Bubba

from, from 6:00... till 10:00 for, for a decade.

And the problem was, for him, he knew

and Bubba knew that Bubba was right.

Go after the people that didn't tape it.

It's my house. I-- My surveillance system taped it.

I'm certainly not proud of that.

I certainly have some onus in this.

I certainly got some skin in this game.

But how about the people that stole it and then shopped it

for two years for millions of dollars in Hollywood,

and then ultimately actually took Hulk Hogan

to a hotel room and tried to shake him down for $300,000?

How about those people? Isn't-- It's...

No, those people don't get arrested.

Those people don't-- those people get rewarded.

Those people get rewarded.

And if you are going to live that life,

if you're gonna be the guy

who's gonna be a gotcha journalist,

you better not make a mistake.

'Cause when you make a mistake...

all the people that you've shown to be frauds,

all the people that you've shown to be incorrect,

all the people, where you've unearthed corruption...

As they say, you better be better than Caesar's wife.

When Bubba had a misstep...

it was times 100.

When Bubba was wronged...

...no one sent the cavalry.

"Ye who has the gold makes the rules."

You know, they don't make these things up because they're not true.

It's just not surprising at all to see how people exercise

their ability, with power and influence,

to exercise control over somebody that they view

is using their power and control against them.

It's human nature.

As prosecutors too,

you're always trying to look at an angle.

How can you get some leverage?

2017, they're looking to get Donald Trump for anything.

So, what they did was they, they go to Keith Davidson.

These payments come up in the press,

with Storm-- Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougal,

and they see the name Keith Davidson. They look and they say,

"We've got a nol-pros on this guy from an extortion case."

And the statute of limitations is ten years. How does it even run?

We can go back and leverage this and say,

"Hey, here's your two choices.

You can give us Michael Cohen, or you can go to Leavenworth."

For extorting Hulk Hogan.

When Keith Davidson was arrested in Tampa,

when they didn't charge him, when a period of--

uh, the statute of limitations was open.

Does it make sense that someone comes back to him

to say, "You know what?"

And then he gets involved with you know who

to get where they needed to go

by using pressure that's used

every day in any town in USA on criminal defendants

so the prosecuting authority

can get a conviction through cooperation.

Asha, you heard the president. He is angry.

CNN is reporting the raids on Michael Cohen's hotel room, his office.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting a raid at one of his homes as well.

Because they're trying to get their head around how did defendant Cohen--

how did he get to where he was?

How did they get his cooperation?

What "leverage" did they have?

This would've been executed pursuant to a search warrant,

which means that the FBI obtained permission from a judge

to enter these facilities.

They would have had to show probable cause

that in these locations and in specified places, documents, devices,

they were going to find evidence of a crime.

It's interesting, you start pulling on that, on that string, on that thread,

and it takes you from the DC area

to the Tampa Bay area, and there's a big question mark.

We have learned the FBI seized voice recordings made by Michael Cohen

of his conversations, at least some of his conversation,

with attorney Keith Davidson.

Remember that four of the five cases

that you just learned about, well, they involve, of course,

- or at least are connected to, Donald Trump. - Yeah.

How did Keith Davidson become a corroborating witness?

Why is his name redacted on other court filings?

Why is he walking free?

Why did other people get charged?

How did that lead to the former president?

You can always tell when Michael Cohen is lying. You know how?

His lips are moving.

A lot of people in Trump world could not get their head around the fact

that Michael Cohen, who was a devout Trump supporter,

someone that Trump leaned on, someone that was really a right-hand man,

someone that was able-- to have his back...

...for a long time.

Everybody-- you know, you go online, you go to these chat rooms

and you go, "Who got to Cohen?

How did they get to Cohen?" You know, who is "they"?

We don't know who "they" is other than there is sort of

out in the ether that, how do you take a loyalist...

how do you flip 'em?

Uh, I think the FBI was probably looking at Michael Cohen

to find any potential crime

that they could then use to leverage against him

to get him to make false testimony against Donald Trump.

Their ultimate goal was never Michael Cohen.

They just correctly identified him as the, as the weak reed,

somebody who could be flipped.

And of course they were right.

And then you go back to Keith Davidson and you go,

"Well, what was Keith Davidson's relationship to Cohen

and how long did they know each other?"

And then you go back to our little case

in Tampa, Florida, and you go, "I remember

when Keith Davidson was arrested. What was he arrested for?"

"Oh, that was connection to a videotape between Hulk Hogan,

the most famous wrestler in the history of the world."

The non-prosecution of Keith Davidson

and his other co-conspirators...

...is a great, huge of-- stroke of luck for the federal government

because they have this in their back pocket to use as leverage

against Keith Davidson to flip on Michael Cohen

l-- later down the line.

The way that they operate is to just hold that in their back pocket,

because, maybe, one, they'll need it-- they'll need to use it against you,

or as a, as a lever, but maybe they won't.

And this time, they needed it.

And I, and I think, on some level,

that the US Attorney's Office figured

that this guy who's been involved

in the edges of legal activity...

"I think that holding this prosecution in our back pocket

might end up bearing fruit," which it did, in spades.

Keith Davidson, former attorney for two women

who were paid to keep quiet about their alleged affairs with Donald Trump,

is cooperating with federal authorities

who are investigating Trump attorney Michael Cohen.

Davidson has been asked by prosecutors

in the Southern District of New York

to provide electronic information.

According to his spokesman, quote, "He has done so

and will continue to co-operate to the fullest extent possible

under the law."

When lawyers have lawyers, it's bad.

When lawyers have lawyers who have spokesmen...

...go ahead and set yourself on fire.

Uh, I think it's very apparent from the indictment

that Cohen flipped on Trump,

because the government had the goods on him

in terms of multiple crimes,

including crimes connected to,

uh, the financing of his taxicab business

and other tax-related crimes.

And they leveraged them against Cohen to get him

to flip on Trump and try to save his own hide.

How did Keith Davidson become a corroborating witness?

Why is his name redacted on other court filings?

Why is he walking free?

Why did other people get charged?

How did that lead to the former president?

You know, it's dog-eat-dog.

You know, it's survival of the fittest.

You know, we see it in, you know, politics today.

You know, people are utilizing their control and influence

to affect people that aren't in line

with what they want to control or influence.

A lot of people are surprised when I tell them

as I lecture around the country,

and I say that cops can lie to you.

Some people in public believe, if you think it's an undercover cop

and you're in some sort of drug deal, that if you say,

"Are you an undercover cop?", the cop has to tell you that they are.

"Oh, you got me." Well, that's not true.

And there have been books

and, and, and thousands of court decisions

that have allowed law enforcement officers

to be dishonest with potential criminal defendants

to get them to confess.

There's a limit to that.

But we, as Americans, go, "Well, we kind of like it

when our streets are safe."

And we'll give them more tools

to make sure that we're safe.

All that's well and good until someone knocks on your door

or comes to your house in Palm Beach with flashbangs at 3:00 in the morning

with 25 FBI on the back of their back

to arrest a 70-year-old, Roger Stone.

Many times, the person who is the subject

of a criminal investigation... You say, "How is this--

There's no way this person would ever flip.

They'd never testify against anybody else.

They'd, they'd never confess."

But if you look at it, it's usually all--

It goes, it goes back to one thing,

and that is pressure.

What kind of pressure?

Relentless questioning.

Pushing a picture of a victim in front of someone

who's accused of kidnaping to get them to break down.

Telling them that their best friend

is in the next room, singing like a canary,

implicating them, even when it's not happening.

No one can explain what it's like to be, or how they're gonna react

until they're in that seat, with that bright light.

Until they realize the full weight of the US government

or the state government, or wherever you are,

upon that criminal defendant, using whatever pressure

that they can get their hands on...

...whether it's true or not true.

The whole idea is to get a criminal conviction,

and we've seen a whole lot of convictions connected to this case.

And more importantly, we've seen pressure applied

to convict and pressure not to file.

And if you look closely at that, it comes back

to who's on the inside and who's on the outside.

But they had to get Donald Trump.

So, the next step was Michael Cohen.

S-- Pressure Cohen to flip on Trump and see what you could find.

It was a fishing expedition, but it was a fishing expedition

that was only made possible by Keith Davidson.

He tipped them as to the potential value of Cohen,

uh, and then he basically traded them Cohen

to get off the hook himself.

Now, suddenly he's no longer on indictment.

Now, suddenly he's a witness in that case.

How convenient.

He was his own man. He was like an island.

But nobody liked him in the system.

There's some people, uh, the things they've done--

Uh, people have done some outrageous things in this,

in this market, in, in radio, but nothing ever came of that.

But the fact of the matter is the tape

being marketed and sold, and the FBI is involved,

and this and that, and conversations recorded,

and nothing happened.

It's like, I, I... I don't get it.

You don't have a more solid case than that to prosecute,

but, you know, it just never happened because I believe

it was his personality and who he was.

This week, Hogan's attorney asked a judge

for more than three years' worth of Calta's phone records

to prove he was behind the leak.

It coincided with these two-- uh, with Cox and Mr. Calta

being involved in a radio war with Bubba Clem.

According to the lawsuit,

Calta conspired with Matt "Spice Boy" Loyd

to leak the sex video

as revenge to rival shock jock Bubba Clem,

who was Hogan's best friend at the time.

I, I think that what happened with Bubba

and with the employees of Bubba doing the things that they did...

Um, you know, you hire and you bring people in around you

that you feel you can trust.

And that was one of the things that in the Howard world,

we all trusted each other, and we believed in each other

and had each other's back.

And for someone to do that to Bubba, that was close to him,

that was taking a paycheck from Bubba on a weekly basis,

that's just underhanded.

It's just disgusting.

Whether you agree with it or disagree with it,

what Bubba and his wife do

inside the confines of their own home,

to each their own, you know.

But for him to be persecuted

by the public at large for the attempted sale

and distribution of this tape...

...is unbelievable to me.

When the amount of evidence that's out there...

And again, you don't have to take my word for it.

You don't have to take Bubba's word for it.

It's a matter of fact. It's not disputed.

This is not whether the Earth is flat or not.

The tape was stolen. Period.

We knew who the thief was. That was uncontroverted.

On tape. Videotape.

But now the question became

going back to that gnawing term "discretion."

Now, it was that string, that thread that got pulled,

that basically changed the course

in Terry's life... and Bubba's life.

Made a lot of people a lot of money, including their lawyers.

And went sensational, as far as trials go.

And Mark Ober used that discretion to make the decision

that no one really could object to

other than vote them out of office.

Which did happen, by the way.

But in Bubba's case,

Mark Ober's memory was strong, and he never forgot.

For a long time, I thought it was Heather,

um, because she would've been the one that had access to it.

It was, you know, Occam's razor. It was the most easy,

obvious answer, is the right answer.

But it wasn't. It was, it was Spice that stole it.

And, and I remember Bubba called me to his office

and he was like, "Yeah, I think...

I think I've tru-- trusted the wrong person here."

And it was-- and he-- Bubba told me

that he had found out that it was Spice that took the tape.

And I was like, "Wow."

I mean, I was stunned.

I knew Spice had hatred and vitriol in him,

but I didn't... I also know that,

that Matt "Spice Boy" Loyd values his freedom

and being out of jail,

and I didn't think that he would risk

going to jail just to get revenge on Bubba.

But I was even wrong on that one.

Like, the, the depths that he would go to,

I just didn't-- I didn't realize.

Spice Boy always had this saying,

"The best revenge is revenge."

That's the type of person he was,

and he never let it go.

Like, if he-- you, you did him wrong,

if he got a chance six or seven years later, guess what?

Bubba is the victim. Uh... not a pure victim, but a victim.

And now the US Attorney and the state attorney

are getting talked, you know, talked in their ear,

and they realize that it was easier for them

to listen to their former buddy,

their former coworker,

on a case that wasn't gonna change the world,

on a case that they didn't want to have the public scrutiny on,

and it just didn't matter to them.

It was an easy decision to just press that button,

or in this case, sign that signature.

No true bill, no information. Case closed.

Look, I don't think there's any question whatsoever

that Bubba Clem was targeted, um, because he's controversial.

And he's controversial because he tells you what he really thinks.

And that's not always politically correct.

So, he's a very polarizing figure.

He's not beloved by the, by the extreme left

or those who are politically correct.

So, yeah, there's no question

in my mind that he's been targeted.

And like me, he was treated differently,

like Donald Trump, like General Flynn.

But what has happened, though, is the people in power,

both in the radio industry,

both in the criminal justice world,

have fought to keep him down because he,

to them, is a thorn in the side.

He threatens their order.

He threatens their "view of how things should be."

Former President Trump clearly ruffled a lot of feathers.

For a federal judge to give you a warrant

for somebody's attorney's office?

Not, not against you,

but somebody's attorney's office?

To go look at what would be privileged material, obviously.

For a federal judge to grant you that warrant,

you would have a-- have to have a first-person co-conspirator

as a cooperating witness. And that's what they had.

And that's why he was so willing to give that up.

Keith Davidson's not a dumb man. He's not gonna give the,

the feds nothing without leverage and without getting a deal.

And he got both. They leveraged him into giving them Cohen.

And he got a deal for doing it, which is a complete walk.

And he kept his bar-- his law license.

But when you're not part of that inner circle

that came up like that, you make enemies.

Many have said,

"Look at where we are right now in 2024,

with the number of criminal prosecutions

against a former president."

How does that end?

We've got a verdict, Ari Melber. - Count 33 and 34.

Guilty. Uh, that is Donald J. Trump, defendant,

in New York v. Donald Trump...

Found guilty on all 34 felony counts.

Uh, that is the verdict here in this case.

Bubba had run-ins. And, you know, this is still America.

You still have freedom of speech,

as far as opinions and things of that nature.

And he's had run-ins with state attorneys...

...with other local politicians and things of that nature.

And he's not one to hold back...

...when exposing something that he thinks is wrong

and has facts to back it up.

He just lets loose. He's unfiltered.

That's what he is. He's totally unfiltered.

And that goes against the tide in politics locally here.

They just-- You know, when you get caught with the truth,

the truth is the truth. You can't hide from it.

What I've learned is...

...uh, you can't fight City Hall.

And don't go against the government,

and don't go against huge corporations because they will crush you.

It's possible that what happened is

some or all of the defendants decided to cooperate with the government,

to assist them with the prosecution of other people,

to provide information that's useful to the government investigators

as a way to earn leniency.

Now, leniency as a result of cooperation

can reduce in a reduced sentence.

And in some cases, it can,

it can mean that you never are charged in the first place.

You can do things that are criminal-- criminally wrong.

You can do things that are ethically wrong.

You can do things that are morally wrong.

I believe that what happened here,

it, it was wrong on all three counts.

I've always been brought up to believe

that a friend is a friend.

Loyalty is loyalty.

And, uh, through thick and thin, not in good times.

And then you take off in bad.

And I've been friends with him for over 20 years

and would never change that.

Now, other people that are competing with him

may not like that, but... I don't give a damn.

I think, when it's all said and done

and you look back at his career 20 or 30 years from now,

you'd go, "Man, that guy was right.

Hard to believe."

I wish I would have listened more intently.

People will say that about Bubba the Love Sponge.

In the 45 years that I've been in American politics,

I've never seen anything quite like the politicization

and weaponization of the entire criminal justice system

and using it to target your political enemies.

So, it's a two-tiered justice system,

uh, and people are treated differently

because of their politics.

Unfortunately, today it's part of the political process.

It shouldn't be, but it is.

Anybody that goes against this power structure,

and especially somebody like Bubba the Love Sponge,

who is pointing out specific cases with specific people,

of course they're gonna get-- they'd do anything they can to get him off the air.

They'd need to get him off the air.

You're talking about serious business now.

You're talking about people that have a lot at stake.

And if you think for one minute that it has to do

with goofiness, and shock jocks, and sex tapes,

well, that's what they need the public to think it's about,

because the public can sink their teeth into that.

But when you start getting down into the specifics of corruption,

which Bubba did all the time--

It wasn't a one-off. He did it all the time.

They're gonna get you off the air and they're gonna do anything

to get you off the air and shut you up.

And that's what's happened to Bubba,

and that's what's happened to others,

uh, since then, because that has become their formula.

Their formula is to shut you up.

There's been a transformation, uh, with news, uh as far as ethics,

but I think it goes even further into the morals of the people

involved with spreading the shit that's going on.

It's not the same.

Uh, the ethics have been tossed out of the window.

Uh, the facts have been tossed out of the window.

Anybody can pop up on, on some podcast or this or that

and say something, and then all of a sudden

the media is running with it like it's factual,

like it's true.

We live in a society now where-- It's just first.

Who cares? Get it out there.

We don't care who it hurts. We don't care who we destroy.

We don't care if it's true. Just say it. Sell it.

What happens when more than 100 intellectuals

make a bid to defend free speech in the face of cancel culture?

They get canceled, of course, proving the existence

of exactly the sentiments about which they were complaining.

But that's not what Rogan was taking.

But CNN didn't care, and lied about it

and said Rogan was taking horse pills.

- Just a lie. - I don't think anyone is thick.

But don't you think that a lie like that

is dangerous on a news network?

When you know that they know they're lying?

The other thing you notice when you take a little time off

is how unbelievably stupid

most of the debates you see on television are.

Notably, Tucker Carlson did not mention Fox News,

nor the reason for his departure.

Everything in this day and age is politically motivated.

Whatever side you're on. What the hell's going on here?

You should all be known for factual information,

the best that you can get, and bring it to the public

to digest and let them make their decision.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg is pointing fingers

at the Biden administration over Covid-19.

The head of Facebook and Instagram's parent company, Meta,

says in 2021, he was pressured

to censor social media content about the pandemic.

If I could wave a wand, how about an honest media,

one that wasn't full of jackals with an agenda?

Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, MSNBC.

The, the-- My friend Sean Hannity is right.

Journalism today is dead. Dead.

Uh, and when you have one-party government,

uh, or you have a media that is completely dominated,

owned and controlled with people, with one narrative, one point of view,

putting aside whether that's the truth or not, you have a very dangerous situation.

Censorship is the single most dangerous problem in the country.

The establishment hates us

because we're not afraid to call people out

that are doing bad things,

or that are part of the good old boy network.

I came in here like a wrecking ball.

I, I, I describe myself as the People's Hammer.

Say it like it is. Our mouths--

I guess it'd be our mouths get us in trouble.

I, I guess there was a point in time in journalism

when it was really a source to be trusted.

Honorable people were doing an honorable job

to get the information and facts to people.

Uh, if they did make a mistake,

very rarely, but if they did,

they'd retract and say, "Oh, we made a mistake,

but this is..." Bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah.

You see less and less of that now.

What's changed today is that...

...everybody's their own media distribution company.

There's so much information that's out there,

and all of that information is being delivered

in a way to monetize the person

that's the origination of the distribution.

Unless you can verify-- and I always had a rule of thumb when I was reporting

on something very sensitive,

uh, to have two, if not three, sources to confirm

that this is what's happening and these are the people involved.

If I didn't have that, I never took it to air.

In order to separate themselves

from the other million distribution channels out there,

people have gotten more and more aggressive

with what they say,

how they say it, how they spin it...

...in order to get attention.

Because in order to get paid, you have to get attention.

And in order to get attention,

you've had to get more and more edgy.

Look... we're Americans.

Everybody's got a different opinion.

You belong to a certain party.

You have views, and morals, and ethics

about certain things. Bah, bah, bah.

But discussion, intelligent discussion,

respectful discussion is where you start from.

One network is known for this, another one is known for this,

another one is known for this. What the hell is going on here?

You should all be known for factual information,

the best that you can get, and bring it to the public

to digest and let them make their decision.

But that's not happening.

Why they weren't charged, I think, also ends up

having a lot to do with the Cox case being settled.

You know, that settlement stopped that trial

and additional discovery and other things

from becoming public record that nipped it in the bud.

You know, I was disappointed that, that Hogan and Cox settled

because that was truly going to tell all the fuckery involved

in this particular sex tape.

Based on the fact that Gawker,

you know, lost an award for 115 million,

you know, it's undisclosed. Nobody knows what the Cox settlement was for,

but I'm sure it had to be significant.

But that settlement being done also ended up protecting,

you know, Mike Calta and the other people involved

because that case got squashed, it got put to bed.

The media forgot about it. You know,

nobody's gonna talk about what might have happened,

how would this have gone if it had gone to trial.

Nobody does that. It settles. It's over.

It gets pushed to the bottom of the pile. It's no longer news.

But that got settled one day before Mike Calta's deposition.

What does that tell you?

Originally, they were hopeful

that it would get Bubba terminated immediately.

I think they were disappointed in that.

That took a little bit of time.

It did eventually happen,

but it didn't happen immediately.

I don't think they considered all of the facts

relative to what the laws were

and how they would affect the people involved,

including Bubba.

I don't think they...

...really took into account

the success that Bubba had as a broadcaster,

and how he continued to maintain his listenership

and his number one ratings throughout this entire process.

What Tony Burton miscalculated was the loft factor,

lack of fuckin' talent.

Mike Calta can't, can't ever be me.

Everything that Mike Calta would want to do in radio I've done.

And he thought, by taking my show,

my one local Tampa show,

that would let him achieve those, those heights of what I've done.

Today, again, in looking in hindsight,

that they continued to work

to try to remove 'em as soon as possible,

but the plan was, if they weren't able to remove him then,

that they clearly weren't gonna renew the contract

and were gonna remove him at the end of the renewal.

Which is what's ended up happening.

Whether you like him, hate him, love him, bah, bah, bah,

the one thing that I can sit here and tell you,

after the 30 years that I've known him,

he does not bite his fuckin' tongue.

He speaks truth that is hurtful to some people,

but it's still truth.

Bubba has not lost his voice at all in the industry.

I think that he is reinventing himself with, uh, new platforms

like with Twitch, or Facebook Live, or Twitter,

or, you know, these social media channels.

Uh, there's more opportunity out there than there's ever been before,

and it's harnessing that opportunity,

Bubba's learning, and, uh, without having to, uh, succumb to

to or to compromise, uh, his abilities with, uh, management,

like he did in the past with terrestrial radio.

So, I think you'll see Bubba in the next year or two,

you know, start to really come into his own.

Bubba's career, over time, has changed dramatically,

but so has the landscape of broadcast and media.

You know, today we're in a digital age.

So, when Bubba first started, and when I first started

repping him in the 1990s,

you know, there really wasn't smartphones,

and, you know, the internet wasn't used for social media

and, you know, terrestrial radio, at the time,

was a huge medium for how people got information.

And so now I may not be on that sexy FM station in Tampa, Florida,

but, you know, I have 250 million views digitally.

I don't know if I would have made

that leap of faith in 2017 when I met with Tom Bean

and he's like, "Hey, there's this thing called Twitch,

and we need to put your show on it." I'm like,

"What the fuck are you talking about, Tom Bean?"

He's like, "Just trust me. I got cameras coming on in the studio."

Any business is based on how much, you know,

revenue it creates and what it puts, you know, to the bottom-line profit.

And radio stations are well behind the heyday

of their revenue heights

and, you know, profit.

So, it's changed a great deal,

which has also changed the way that

radio DJs broadcast.

What they're looking for from radio DJs,

what they're willing to pay radio DJs,

what being a radio DJ is.

That's where all these terrestrial radio guys

need to be going, but they're not.

They think that terrestrial radio is gonna be there forever.

And quite frankly, it's not.

It's continuing to dwindle not only in size,

but what they're paying people too.

Everybody in the general public seems to think

that Bubba's the person that released this tape,

and that he released this tape for his own benefit.

You know, when people talk about,

"Well, he did it to benefit, you know...

For, you know, his personal benefit."

At the peak of his career, Bubba was making

$7 million a year.

How is he gonna ever make enough money from the sale

of an excerpt of one video

of Hulk Hogan fucking his wife

that's gonna replace that?

When you have such a big name like Bubba the Love Sponge,

you know, you, you've been all over the place.

You're on Howard's, uh, channel.

You need to find a, a circle of friends that you can trust.

You want a bunch of trusting people

because there's a lot of sensitive information

that goes on behind the scenes.

And, and, and I think

somebody that he really, really trusts,

like Matt Loyd, to be able to do what he did,

I think Bubba started second guessing himself.

"Maybe, maybe I'm not a good, uh, a good person

to be able to find talent or people I can trust.

I thought I had that."

And, and I think that's

one of the qualities that he looks for.

But he also looks for... raw clay,

people that have potential. Because Bubba is

not only a fan of radio, he's an artist of radio.

Like, a lot of people just do radio.

He is an artist. Like, just down to the--

Every single little detail.

Uh, running a tight board and stuff like that.

Oh, I, I miss my old lifestyle a lot.

I mean, I was living in a 6500-square-foot mansion.

I... you know-- Fuck.

I may was making a lot of money. I had an airplane.

I mean, you know, all the cool shit that rich people have.

You know, I probably wasn't being responsible,

and saving, and investing,

and buying properties and shit like that,

but, boy, I was having fun, you know.

And I'm having fun now. I just--

I have fun with an F-150.

Today, you know, my role with Bubba is, is probably,

you, you know, more of a mentoring role.

You know, continuing to help him,

you know, look at things differently,

understand how things work,

how to...

...communicate with people,

how to do the right things.

To think about, you know, how his actions affect other people.

You know, it's only taken me 30 years,

but he's actually paying attention

to some of those things now, which is refreshing.

That sex tape has been a pain in my ass,

but it's caused me to grind.

It's caused me to appreciate

the, the smaller things in life.

Um, I don't make as much money as I used to,

but I'm happier than I ever, ever have been.

Um, and it's caused me to have to reinvent myself digitally.

When someone comes in and has...

...the attention of the people,

the hearts of the people...

...the, the admiration

for things that you've been able to expose, you go to Bubba.

He, he has a long history of being the voice of the people,

exposing wrongs.

But he broke a lot of eggs.

He keeps you on your toes. It's not the same.

Every show is different.

And I think that's the beauty,

that's his strength in broadcasting.

You'll never get bored. Never get bored.

And I'm excited to see him be ahead of the curve.

When terrestrial radio is dying, you know,

he has opened up new doors for even new--

Even other radio professionals,

you know, are following him once again.

You know, he has this innate ability to reinvent himself.

He struck a nerve.

And, and, and if you talk to people

in and around the community,

he was a pariah on one end,

but to the other side, he was a hero.

You know, I feel like the justice system really let me down.

You asked me earlier if I had learned anything from this.

I sure did. Because if you piss off the wrong people

or the people of power,

your personal rights don't mean shit.

And if you don't think it can happen to you,

fuck around and find out.

You're just a stupid-ass jobber.

Trust me, it can happen to anybody.

It doesn't matter who you are.

From Donald Trump to Bubba Clem.

He is finally-- you know, he's gone back to the basics.

He understands the importance of family.

He has a wonderful support system.

Um, he, he, has some wonderful friends.

And, you know, the people, in the end, it's not who wants--

Everyone wants to ride with you when you have a private jet,

but who wants to ride with you when you're taking the bus?

He finally has that group of people, and he's soaring.

I mean, he's, he's doing phenomenal.

And it's, it's, it's not a surprise.

With, with his talent and tenacity,

I'm really excited for this next chapter.

I now know what the consequences

of taking people of power out.

And you know what? I'm gonna keep right on doing it,

because that's who the fuck I am.

And, you know, the bottom line is,

it's all because I have the best, most loyal fans

of any radio personality ever.

They're affectionately called the Bubba Army.

The Bubba Army strong, the Bubba Army proud,

the Bubba Army, they're not going anywhere.

It's okay. You can't kill me.

You tried to fucking kill me, but you didn't.

I'm like the cockroach of radio.

I ain't going nowhere.

♪ Soul swingin', yeah ♪

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Terry, we're on the air. - What?

I-- I'm just saying we're on the air right now.

Yeah, we're not in a huddle making the plans.

- Yeah. - Oh. Okay. Well, fuck--

When did Brent become the fucking quarterback?

When did Brent become the fucking quarterback?

Well, I'm the offensive coordinator. I'm trying to tell you.

You guys have made him bad for the cause.

All you have to do is play my clips and then--

And if, if, if anything that I said, that's real,

it's, it's completely invalidated

because theFear Factor guy just said it.

I'm bad, I'm bad for the cause.

You let Sluggo feel your boobs

and see how the, the, the new gummy--

Not that he's felt a lot of boobs. I don't know.

Yes. But, I mean, you know, the--

on how the, the, the gummy texture is a problem.

Are you medically trained? Can I, can I

- put this out there as, like, a breast exam? - Of course.

But you're right.

There's hate in this country. It's at an all-time level,

with the exception of the Civil War.

Well, you know, and, Bill, I've been a victim

of people wanting to destroy my career.

You have-- There-- There's a thing in the news today.

But she, you know, she's, like, got this

big thing, that she'd love to do Playboy

just because, you know, whatever. Because it's like

- a, you know, almost a-- - But it's kind of fun, you know.

It's an icon-type deal. And I'm like-- I'm--

I have a problem with my wife doing Playboy.

- Why? - You're supposed

- to be on my team, asshole. - No, I'm just asking.

I, I understand your pain on that one.

Yeah.

Bubba is a real man.

He told everyone here off.

And, uh...

- That's right. Took the punishment. - And you know what?

Benji, I'm, I'm accepting my punishment, am I not?

I'm trying to pick up the pieces. You know, I mean, today, I--

You're on, you're on thin ice. Howard hates you, Benji.

Oh, like, Jay-Z and those guys,

those are new money. You're, like, mid-level,

but, like, uh, you know, midlife crisis money.

And then Jerry would be old-school money.

Yeah, Jerry-- I mean, Jerry busted his ass to get

what he got, man. He was, he was always getting...

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