Hustler publisher Larry Flynt dies at 78

[ItsjustMe]

https://www.abc12.com/2021/02/10/hustler-founder-larry-flynt-dies-at-78/

Porn purveyor Larry Flynt, who built Hustler magazine into an adult entertainment empire while championing First Amendment rights, died Wednesday. He was 78.

Flynt had been in frail health and died of heart failure at his Hollywood Hills home, said his nephew, Jimmy Flynt Jr.

From his beginnings as an Ohio strip club owner to his reign as founder of one of the most explicit adult-oriented magazines, Flynt constantly challenged the establishment and became a target for the religious right and feminist groups.

Flynt scored a surprising U.S. Supreme Court victory over the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who had sued him for libel after a 1983 Hustler alcohol ad suggested Falwell had lost his virginity to his mother in an outhouse.

With a fortune estimated at more than $100 million, Flynt spent his later years in the political arena. When Gov. Gray Davis was recalled by California voters in 2003, Flynt was among 135 candidates who ran to replace him. He called himself “a smut peddler who cares” and gathered more than 15,000 votes.

A self-described progressive, Flynt was no fan of Donald Trump. Before the 2016 election, he offered payment of up to $1 million for video or audo recordings of Trump engaging in illegal or “sexually demeaning or derogatory” activity.

In 2017, Flynt offered a $10 million reward for evidence that would lead to Trump’s impeachment, and in 2019 Larry Flynt Publications sent a Christmas card to some Republican congressional members that showed Trump lying dead in a pool of blood, with the killer saying: “I just shot Donald Trump on Fifth Avenue and no one assassinated me”— a reference to Trump’s boast that he could commit such a killing and wouldn’t lose votes.

Flynt’s life was depicted in the acclaimed 1996 film “The People vs. Larry Flynt,” which brought Oscar nominations for director Milos Forman and Woody Harrelson, who played Flynt.

[dalton99a]

1. Kick

[AmyStrange]

2. He was a good man with a dirty mind...

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Sounds like me actually, except for the "good man" part.

Thanks for sharing.
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[PJMcK]

3. I never liked Hustler

But Larry Flynt was a fierce defender of the First Amendment. I respect him for the battles he fought and won.

I hope his family finds peace in their loss.

[Blue_playwright]

4. Same.

As a former journalist, I always felt we owed him a debt of gratitude for his lawsuit.

[Praek3]

5. Loved Larry

Mr. Flynt is an American icon. He did more to protect our 1st Amendment right than most elected officials. Hustler was many magnitudes better than Hefner's condescending rag.

I bet God and Larry are having a boisterous, congenial conversation. Would love to be a fly on that wall.

[ItsjustMe]

6. Larry Flynt

Was An Atheist

https://www.celebatheists.com/wiki/Larry_Flynt

[AmyStrange]

8. I'm sure the Notorious RBG is in on THAT conversation...

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That would be the ULTIMATE late-night talk show episode.
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[Aristus]

7. He was kind of hard to like, at first.

I thumbed through a few editions of Hustler when I was in the Army. My fellow tankers liked it a lot. Most of it turned my stomach. I was a Playboy kind of guy.

Some of that stuff was revolting, and I'm no bluestocking.

But I really liked and respected the way he stood up for freedom of the press, and for free speech. His pushback against censorship was as shameless as everything else about him, and that's a good thing.