Former wrestler, chief executive and current Mexico-based online talk show host Jesse Ventura has a couple of reasons he won’t go see “American Sniper.” One of them is that he doesn’t think of Chris Kyle as a hero.
“A hero must be honorable, must have honor. And you can’t have honor if you’re a liar. There is no honor in lying,” Ventura told the Associated Press from his digs in Baja California.
Ventura went to court over claims that a passage of Kyle’s memoir, in which Kyle wrote that he decked Ventura for saying the Navy SEALs “deserved to lose a few” in Iraq, was fabricated. A jury awarded Ventura, a former Navy specialist himself, $1.8 million in damages. The legal fight was ugly and highly publicized.
“[Ventura] is certainly grateful for the verdict, but his reputation with an entire generation of young SEALs may never be repaired,” Ventura’s lawyer, David Bradley Olsen, said when the jury announced its decision. “It is a victory in the sense that the jury did tell the world that Chris Kyle’s story is a lie and was a fabrication.” Kyle’s estate has appealed.
The ex-Minnesota governor added in his interview with the AP that “American Sniper” is “as authentic as ‘Dirty Harry,’ ” a specific slam for “Sniper” director Clint Eastwood’s connection to both movies.
Kyle’s family did not respond, citing the ongoing appeal of Ventura’s defamation suit.
(AP)
