Larry Flynt, Who Built a Porn Empire With Hustler, Dies at 78
As the publisher of a notorious sexually explicit magazine, he found himself at the nexus of a cultural and legal war and became an unlikely free-speech hero.
Larry Flynt, the publisher of Hustler magazine, in 1996. He was an unpopular hero to civil libertarians, the Devil incarnate to an unlikely alliance of feminists and morality preachers, and a purveyor of guilty secrets to legions of men.Credit.Evan Hurd/Sygma, via Getty Images
Feb. 10, 2021
Larry Flynt, a ninth-grade dropout who built a $400 million empire of raunchy publications, strip clubs and “adult” shops around his sexually explicit magazine Hustler, and spent decades battling obscenity and libel charges as a self-promoting champion of freedom of the press, died on Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 78.