The court upheld the right of the press to publish “outrageous opinions” about public figures. Supreme Court and remains a landmark decision.
It was not about pornography it was about censorship, Flynt insisted. The case, he argued, transcended the dispute with Falwell. A Virginia jury threw out the libel charge but awarded Falwell $200,000 for emotional distress.įlynt, a multimillionaire, could have easily cut a check for $200,000, but he contended the principle was too important to abandon.
#Penthouse magazine 2017 movie#
How the pornographer found himself in the embrace of the reverend who sued him.įor such a sophomoric brand of satire, the case evolved into an important test of limits of the 1st Amendment and was the central issue depicted in the movie about Flynt.įalwell ended up filing a $45-million lawsuit against Hustler. In 2016, just weeks before the presidential election, he offered an identical bounty to anyone who could produce video or audio recordings of Donald Trump “engaged in illegal activity or in a sexually demeaning or derogatory manner.” There were no collectors on either offer.
His foray into the seamy side of politics began in the late 1990s when Flynt placed a full-page ad in the Washington Post announcing “a cash offer of up to one million dollars” to anyone who could prove having an adulterous sexual encounter with a high-ranking government official or current member of Congress. Flynt was 78.įlynt became an improbable political broker who sought to discredit politicians he believed were hypocrites - the Georgia congressman who opposed abortion yet paid for his wife to undergo the procedure, the former House speaker who’d had extramarital affairs.
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Though he made his reputation and his wealth in porn as founder of Hustler magazine, Flynt repackaged himself again and again - an unlikely 1st Amendment champion, a self-appointed arbitrator of political hypocrisy and a born-again Christian who said he “hustled” for the Lord.īeset with health issues since being shot by a white supremacist as he was arriving for a 1978 obscenity trial in Georgia, Flynt died Wednesday of heart failure at his Hollywood Hills home, the publisher’s nephew told the Associated Press. Larry Flynt ran his pornographic empire from the 10th floor of a Beverly Hills office tower, moving about the Roman columns and nude sculptures in an $85,000 gold-plated wheelchair high above the city.Ī would-be assassin’s bullet had left him paralyzed, and assistants had to lift him to his feet on a regular basis to keep the blood flowing through his body.
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