Larry Flynt, who founded the pornographic magazine Hustler in 1974, died on Wednesday from heart failure at 78 in his Hollywood Hills home.
Flynt’s nephew told the Associated Press that his uncle had been in frail health leading up to his death.
Flynt, who, in the later years of his life, traveled in a golden wheelchair after being paralyzed by a gunman in Georgia, founded several strip clubs in the 1960s, brought First Amendment cases to the Supreme Court, and ran for governor of California in 2003. The pornographer’s legal battles were the subject of a 1996 film titled The People Versus Larry Flynt.
“I’m a hillbilly, and people like me come to sex without all the hang-ups imposed by the hypocritical, ‘you must maintain proper appearances’ morality of the middle class,” he wrote in his 2004 book, Sex, Lies & Politics: The Naked Truth. “When good Christian folk tell me that sex is dirty, I say, ‘Yeah, when it’s done right.’ For me, sex has always been a way of saying, ‘I am outside the reach of your power.’“
Flynt was handed a Supreme Court victory in the 1980s after he was sued by Rev. Jerry Falwell following an article written by him that claimed the religious figure had an incestuous relationship with his mother. The case established precedent that ridiculing public figures is protected speech.
The 78-year-old became the subject of controversy after he published nude photos of a woman in a meat grinder and naked photos of former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Flynt also reportedly took down a GOP politician, Speaker-designate Bob Livingston, after he offered a $1 million bounty for comprising information on lawmakers following former President Bill Clinton’s Oval Office sex scandal.
The magazine founder tried to become the Republican presidential nominee in 1984, but his efforts were stonewalled after he was indicted in 1983 for wearing the U.S. flag as a diaper in a federal court appearance.
Flynt was born in Lakeville, Kentucky, and was raised by his mother in Hamlet, Indiana. He also served in the Navy in 1960 and worked as a radio operator.
