Larry Flynt has died. Having involved himself in issues ranging from America’s most lurid sexual desires, to its most high-minded liberal ideals, Flynt was a dedicated pornographer, provocateur, and a self-styled advocate for free speech. His work as the founder of Hustler magazine brought him from the world of Midwest nightclubs, to the brink of death, and into the highest courts in the land, almost always with an eye on how to raise his profile (and more money) from the dedicated mining of outrage and lust. He died today at the age of 78. Heart failure has been reported as the cause of death.
Born in Kentucky in the 1940s, Flynt involved himself in the business of vice early and often, working as a bootlegger before ultimately opening a series of nudity-focused Hustler nightclubs throughout Ohio. Flynt moved from club ownership to publishing in the 1970s, attempting to undercut Playboy and its ilk by offering far more hardcore imagery in his new magazine, often focused on the degradation of women. Flynt put Hustler on the map in 1975 with the purchase and publication of nude photographs of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, shot by paparazzi while she was on vacation—becoming a millionaire basically overnight due to the increased attention and sales the photos brought.
What followed was a long career of deliberate provocation, reaching its potential apex in 1978, when Flynt was shot by a man who later revealed he’d been outraged by an interracial photo shoot in Hustler. Partially paralyzed, Flynt continued to run his publishing empire, engaging in numerous legal battles with the likes of Jerry Falwell and other anti-pornography crusaders. Flynt also became increasingly engaged in politics, throwing support behind left-leaning figures like Bill Clinton, and offering cash rewards for stories of conservative leaders caught in sexually compromising positions.
Flynt, and the publishing empire he created, remain controversial to this day. He was sued by a secretary for sexual harassment in the mid-2000s, and was accused by one of his daughters, Tonya Flynt-Vega, of sexually abusing her as a child. (Flynt denied the charges.) He is survived by four children and his wife, Elizabeth Berrios, who he was married to from 1998 until his death early this morning.
98 Comments
Defender of free speech. RIP
This is my kind of meeting!
That final o makes it so much better of a word than “porn”.
A
He’s peddling smut in Heaven now
*wipes away a tear*
Is this the Mandela effect? I would have sworn Flynt died years ago.
I think his health took a turn for the worse (maybe a stroke?) and his brother Jimmy and daughter Theresa took over the business side of things while Larry just acted as a face for the company and occasionally did things like those infamous bounties for any evidence of GOP politicians engaged in illicit behavior. That could be what you remember. Also, his daughter Lisa was killed in a car crash a few years back too, so it could be that.
This was my first thought too – but then I realized I’m probably remembering Bob Guccione (from Penthouse), who died in 2010.
It’s true. Mandela killed him…..
Wait, now Mandela’s dead, too? What universe am I in???
“It’s true. Mandela killed him. Wait, now Mandela’s dead, too?”It’s the perfect alibi! What a criminal mastermind!
The Berenstain Bears one.
That’s so weird. In my universe the Berenstains are hippos.
yes, but I prefer The Al Molinaro Effect.
Where Pat Morita took over Arnold’s from the cop from the Odd Couple?
something like that, yes.
Hef died in 2017. Maybe him?
Flags tomorrow will be at full mast
Hi-Yoooo!
Yes – but what of their poles?
R.I.P. First Amendment champion. I’m glad he outlived Jerry Fallwell and lived to see the beginning of Trump’s downfall.
Upside: He’s responsible for parody being protected as free speech.Downside: The degradation of women and the abuse allegations. Hopefully, he’s at peace.
I love it when dudes make comments like this as if they don’t consume pornography.
Oh, I look at porn. It’s just that when I started looking at porn it was when it was exploding on the Internet. So, I never had a real need to go look at any Hustlers.
But Internet porn ain’t got Campari ads – The ‘70s. The Golden Age of Advertising. Just look at them fonts.
There’s pornography and then there’s some of the stuff Flynt put out. Including publishing nude pictures of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis that were taken while she was sunbathing on her private property. If it’s consenting adults, I genuinely don’t care what’s put out there. But if it’s photographs taken of someone without their permission… It is at the very least rape adjacent.
Even if it’s illicit photos of conservative politicians engaging in extra-marital affairs?
Despite his efforts, I don’t think he ever actually published photos or video of a conservative politician engaging in an extra-marital affair. So it’s kind of a moot point. He only – to my knowledge – published photos of a rich lady (who went out of her way to be apolitical after her time as FLOTUS) getting a sun tan in her own backyard.
Now, I wouldn’t personally watch such a video, but – hypothetically – if there were footage of Lindsey Graham hiring a male escort, that would probably be in the public interest because Graham has gone on record calling same sex marriage a part of “the gay agenda”. Now, I don’t think the footage should be played on CNN 24/7, but it should be reported on. Sometimes things just aren’t black-and-white. There’s gray areas.
I love porn but I’ve never had a desire to read a Hustler in my life.
I never read it either, I just looked at the pictures.
I never claimed I didn’t — HUSTLER was just not what did it for me.
The Porno contains Potassium Benzoate.
I’m going to sit the thinkpieces out on this one.
… So, he was a successful version of Trump.
Well, a far more respectable version at the very least.
Oh, the untapped possibilities.
No. Flawed as Mr. Flynt was, he literally stood against everything that lunatic false messiahs stand for in this country.
I don’t generally let misuse of “literally” bug me, but this one’s pretty funny.
“You know, literally in…uh, the figurative sense”: my brain when self-editing.
Hey!!! I only ‘read’ ‘Hustler’ for the ‘articles’. Particularly, the food section.
oh what, because he was paralyzed? sheesh, way to be a pedant.
Pedantry in the service of cheap laughs in dubious taste where Larry Flynt is concerned is no vice, sir!
And he made a damn fine middle chapter to the Anti-Great Man trilogy.
But what are the other two…?
I always put Larry Flynt and Al Goldstein together in my mental list of First Amendment-defending, thumbing-their-nose-at-America’s-prudes (and obviously very flawed) anti-heroes. May they rest in peace, and in filth!
Yes. Goldstein and Flynt were the best bad people.
That is the best description of them both I have heard yet, A Free Planet for Fat Slobs.I can admire both men for their taking the censorship bull by the horns and mocking pro-censorship figures like Falwell — while not having an interest in buying either of their publications.
Ya know, this shameless pervert thinks that you could do a lot worse than Hustler video. Especially their amateur lines, usually included a lot of women who didn’t look like perma-tanned Barbie dolls. Don’t know how they’re doing these days, though: I, uh, inspected a number of their videos for tracking issues back about twenty years ago.
I looked at those amateur porn videos for…lighting and sound tips.Yeah – that’s the only reason why.
God bless you for your dedication to VHS tape quality.
Here is the famous parody ad which went all the way to the Supreme Court. Jerry Falwell reminisces about losing his virginity… to his mother… in an outhouse. Good stuff.
Best part? An outraged Falwell sued Flint for this claiming “defamation” claiming “emotional distress” because to him it wasn’t satire or parody, and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court…where he lost, 8-0!Part of the ruling reads, “The appeal of the political cartoon or caricature is often based on
exploitation of unfortunate physical traits or politically embarrassing
events – an exploitation often calculated to injure the feelings of the
subject of the portrayal”. This was certainly true of the cartoons of Thomas Nast, who skewered Boss Tweed in the pages of Harper’s Weekly. From a historical perspective, political discourse would have been considerably poorer without such cartoons….”FUCK YOU, JERRY FALWELL!
I HOPE YOU ENJOY HELL WHICH IS WHERE PHARISEES AND HYPOCRITES LIKE YOU GO!
This is art.
I forgot about that. Awesome.
I was wracking my brain reading the article for someway to articulate how I felt about Larry Flynt and his death. And I think you summed it up perfectly. The man was a real life anti-hero. He was a revolting human being, but he fought for righteous causes.
Larry Flynt would have been called absurd if he had been created for a work of fiction.
He was…um. He was quite a charmer.
Probably the politest comment that will be made on this board.
I live in the town where he was shot and crippled. You’d think there would be a statue, a plaque, a marker – but no. Even the court building where that trial was held has been demolished; however, it is now the location of an AutoZone with the finest selection of third-party brake pads in the tri-county area*.*There is no recognized tri-county area here. It just sounds good.
Not during Love Week!
in that header photo he looks like when Bender became human …
An execrable man who accomplished some good things.That makes him better than Trump.
It turns out you can be a really, really, really bad person and still possesss a sufficient combination of decency and enlightened self interest to be opposed to fascism in all its many flavors.Does that sound like a low bar? Looking around the U.S.A., I’m not so sure it is.
My father was a Penthouse man so I, in turn, grew up with Penthouse but Hustler was always too low brow for me. I never liked the racist humor (black guys are uneducated and have big dicks! Hilarious!), the articles were idiotic, and pictorials lacked any charm.
Ah yes, Penthouse was far more classy with its closeup spreads of women urinating
Everyone has their point of disgust. Hustler was mine. “Chester The Molester” being presented at all was one of many times I found myself putting the rag back.
I’m a Gigantic Asses man myself.
“I’m a Gigantic Asses man myself”. Not a comment I expect to hear when I got up this morning.
Nor did I. Did Trump get his Twitter account back, or something?
Don’t you put that evil on me!
I loved your opening sentence. “My father was a Penthouse man so I, in turn, grew up with Penthouse”Well done, sir.
… So, you’re Beatles People?
My father was a Dapper Dan man.
370 words for Larry Flynt, who lived a pretty pop culture worthy life (whose biopic got Woody Harrelson an Oscar nom). 800+ for the guy on an Alaska reality show nobody ever heard of. This site is weird.Not to mention that Julie Strain and Leslie West didn’t even get obits at all.
Not to mention most obit headlines begin with a RIP.
Well the Alaskan no one had heard of didn’t appear to have multiple sexual assault allegations, so that alone should give him a leg up.
Larry Flynt would’ve been a great founding father: gross, white, pervy, rapey, racist, ruthlessly capitalist, and yet elevated immeasurably in esteem by the quality of his enemies.
He and Franklin would have thrown the wildest Continental Congress afterparties.
I also hate people who lived and died in past centuries for not believing the things we believe now. Someone really needs to do a takedown piece on doctors who used leeches or maybe what a transphobe John the Baptist was.
I’d suggest to you that the founding fathers are hoisted on their own petards. They were a fairly unique collection of brilliant, well-educated people who were utterly drenched in the rushing waves of Enlightenment-era political and moral philosophy. They could walk down the street and have a conversation with another brilliant person who was actively, contemporaneously calling them out on their hypocrisies and bullshit.You know, like Thomas Paine. Hell, John Adams didn’t even have to leave his own house. His wife was up his ass, and rightly so, for how blatantly hypocritical they were being about women.I don’t go out of my way to dog on dirty peasants from hundreds of years ago for being ignorant. I still maintain shreds of pity for the gullible idiots we’re dealing with today, though obviously my proximity to them in spacetime makes it much harder to keep a level head when they do really dumb, mean, and violent things.
“Scientists” and “doctors,” such as they were throughout history, are a bit of a tossup. It’s a messy mixture of good-faith actors who just didn’t have the knowledge and tools we have today, and flat-out con artists.
He wrote an essay for the Los Angeles Times about the unlikely friendship he developed with Jerry Falwell. It’s oddly heartwarming.
oKyou are…?…
F
Wow. This seems so dated now. Hard to remember a time when fighting for free speech was a noble cause and didn’t get you branded as a far right asshole.
lol your life is a joke
How so? I’m curious what you know about my life.
Nah, your life is a joke. Little bitch
I consider it a major life achievement that this is the 69th comment on the post about Larry Flynt’s death.
meh
Larry Flynt was still alive?
To Larry Flynt, the gentleman’s Al Goldstein!
American Hero