Whale Oil blogger Cameron Slater has declared himself bankrupt after suffering a stroke in October and being unable to pay for the several defamation suits against him.
Last October, Mr Slater was left partially paralysed down his right side and paralysed in his right arm from a stroke, which caused "severe impairment in higher order functioning and moderate speech impairment".
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The medical incident has left Mr Slater unable to post on his notoriously right-wing blog as he cannot concentrate for long periods, deal with loud noises and has impaired vision.
On Tuesday, a post on Whale Oil said that further medical tests had shown his health had not improved and he was unable to return to work as he was "severely incapacitated".
"The medical advice is that, for Cam to recover, he needs to completely remove all forms of stress from his life, to lower his blood pressure and to concentrate on rehabilitation," the post said.
It has also led him to make the "very difficult decision" to declare bankruptcy at the same time as he attempts to fund "three extremely expensive, and in his opinion, vexatious, defamation actions against him".
Earlier this month, Mr Slater lost a defamation suit against businessman Matthew Blomfield, who sued the blogger after a series of posts in 2012 accused him of illegal behaviour.
The judge in that case found after long delays, Mr Slater had been unable to put up any credible defence.
Last year, former Conservative Party leader Colin Craig won a lawsuit that found Mr Slater had defamed him.
In Tuesday's post, Mr Slater thanked his long-time supporters and said Whale Oil, which he compared to American site Breitbart, will continue to function as it had since October, with a management and editorial team.
"He encourages all of [his supporters] to continue to read the Whale Oil blog and to continue to support vitally important issues like free speech, holding idiot politicians to account and continuing the fight against stupid regulation and wasteful government spending."
The post said Mr Slater would not make any further comment at this time.
Newshub.
