Larry Flynt Net Worth

What Was Larry Flynt's Net Worth?

Larry Flynt was an American publisher, entrepreneur, casino owner, and free-speech activist who had a net worth of $500 million at the time of his death.

Larry Flynt built his fortune around "Hustler" magazine, which he launched in 1974 and expanded into a privately held adult-entertainment empire encompassing magazines, retail stores, strip clubs, video production and distribution, websites, licensing operations, and casinos.

Flynt began with a single Ohio bar purchased for $1,800 and eventually became one of the most powerful figures in the adult-entertainment business, competing with publishers such as Hugh Hefner. "Hustler" reached its commercial peak during the 1970s, when circulation climbed into the millions, but Flynt continued diversifying long after print-magazine sales began declining.

His business career became inseparable from decades of obscenity prosecutions, libel suits, political controversies, and First Amendment litigation. His most important legal victory came in 1988, when the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously sided with Flynt in "Hustler Magazine v. Falwell." The landmark ruling strengthened constitutional protection for parody and satire involving public figures.

Flynt was permanently paralyzed from the waist down after being shot outside a Georgia courthouse in 1978. He nevertheless continued running his businesses for more than four decades, famously using a gold-plated wheelchair. Larry died from heart failure at his Los Angeles home on February 10, 2021, at the age of 78.

Early Life

Larry Claxton Flynt Jr. was born on November 1, 1942, in Lakeville, Kentucky. His father, Larry Sr., was a sharecropper and World War II veteran, while his mother, Edith, was a homemaker. Larry was the oldest of three children.

His younger sister, Judy, died of leukemia in 1951. His parents subsequently divorced, splitting up the family. Larry spent time living with his mother in Indiana and later returned to Kentucky to live with his father.

At 15, Flynt dropped out of school and used a falsified birth certificate to join the U.S. Army. After his discharge, he worked various jobs and briefly made money bootlegging liquor. In 1960, he joined the U.S. Navy and served as a radar operator. He was honorably discharged in 1964.

Bars and Hustler Clubs

Flynt's entrepreneurial career began in 1965 when he bought a Dayton, Ohio, bar from his mother for approximately $1,800.

The business quickly became profitable. Flynt reinvested the proceeds into additional bars before moving into a more lucrative concept: clubs featuring nude dancers.

He opened the first Hustler Club in Dayton in 1968 and subsequently expanded into cities including Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Akron, and Toledo. The clubs were generating hundreds of thousands of dollars annually by the early 1970s.

Flynt initially created a small promotional newsletter called "Hustler" to advertise the clubs. What began as a four-page mailer gradually expanded, adding photos, cartoons, articles, and increasingly explicit material.

That promotional newsletter eventually became far more valuable than the clubs it was designed to advertise.

Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

Hustler Magazine

Flynt published the first issue of "Hustler" magazine in July 1974. The publication entered a crowded market dominated by magazines including "Playboy" and "Penthouse," but Flynt deliberately made "Hustler" more explicit, provocative, and confrontational than its competitors.

The magazine initially struggled. Distributors were reluctant to carry it, and Flynt's existing clubs were suffering from the economic downturn associated with the 1973 oil crisis.

"Hustler's" fortunes changed dramatically in 1975 when Flynt purchased nude paparazzi photographs of former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis sunbathing on a Greek island. He reportedly paid just $18,000 for the photographs.

The issue sold roughly one million copies and transformed "Hustler" into a national phenomenon. By the middle of the decade, circulation was reportedly around two million copies per month, with Flynt at various times claiming even higher figures.

The enormous profits from the magazine gave him the capital to expand aggressively into other businesses.

Larry Flynt Publications and Business Empire

Flynt formalized his expanding operations as Larry Flynt Publications, or LFP, in 1976.

Over the following decades, the company published numerous adult-oriented magazines in addition to "Hustler." Flynt also expanded into video production and distribution, websites, retail stores, licensing, and strip clubs carrying the Hustler name.

The company licensed the brand internationally and developed Hustler Hollywood retail stores selling clothing, entertainment products, and other merchandise.

Flynt entered gambling as well. In 2000, he opened the Hustler Casino in Gardena, California. His business interests ultimately included another casino along with gaming operations and an online gambling business.

Because Flynt's companies were privately held, their financial statements were never publicly available. Estimates of his wealth fluctuated substantially. Flynt himself sometimes claimed his empire was worth as much as $700 million. Other estimates were lower, with a widely cited 2015 assessment placing his fortune at roughly $400 million.

Following his death, the Los Angeles Times estimated Flynt Management Group at approximately $500 million. His widow, Elizabeth "Liz" Flynt, took over leadership of the business empire.

1978 Shooting and Paralysis

On March 6, 1978, Flynt was leaving a courthouse in Lawrenceville, Georgia, during an obscenity trial when he and attorney Gene Reeves Jr. were shot by a sniper.

Flynt survived but suffered severe spinal-cord injuries that left him permanently paralyzed from the waist down. He experienced chronic pain for years and became dependent on painkillers before eventually undergoing surgery that reduced the pain.

White supremacist serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin later confessed to shooting Flynt. Franklin said he had been enraged by interracial photographs published in "Hustler." He was never prosecuted for the Flynt shooting but was convicted of other murders and executed in Missouri in 2013.

Flynt spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair. In later years, he became known for using an elaborate gold-plated wheelchair reportedly costing more than $80,000.

(Photo by David Livingston/Getty Images)

Obscenity Battles and Free Speech

Flynt spent much of his adult life in court. He faced obscenity prosecutions, contempt proceedings, lawsuits, and other legal battles over the limits of sexually explicit material and offensive speech.

His first major obscenity prosecution came in Cincinnati in 1976. Flynt was convicted and sentenced to seven to 25 years in prison, but he served only several days before being released while appealing. The conviction was ultimately overturned.

Flynt's tactics were intentionally provocative. He insulted judges, disrupted court proceedings, and once appeared in court wearing an American flag as a diaper.

Beneath the theatrics, however, his cases increasingly raised serious constitutional questions about the government's ability to punish offensive speech.

Jerry Falwell and Landmark Supreme Court Victory

Flynt's most important legal battle began after "Hustler" published a parody advertisement targeting televangelist Jerry Falwell.

The parody imitated a popular liquor advertisement and depicted Falwell describing a fictional sexual encounter with his mother. A disclaimer stated that the piece was a parody and not intended to be taken literally.

Falwell sued Flynt and "Hustler" for libel and intentional infliction of emotional distress, seeking tens of millions of dollars.

A jury rejected Falwell's libel claim because no reasonable reader would believe the parody described actual events. However, it awarded him $200,000 for emotional distress.

The dispute eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

In February 1988, the Court unanimously overturned the damages award. The justices ruled that public figures generally cannot recover damages for emotional distress caused by parody or satire without proving that the publication contained a false statement of fact made with actual malice.

"Hustler Magazine v. Falwell" became a major First Amendment precedent protecting political satire and offensive commentary. The decision transformed Flynt, however improbably, into an important figure in American free-speech law.

Flynt and Falwell eventually developed an unlikely personal friendship despite their ideological differences.

"The People vs. Larry Flynt"

Flynt's life reached mainstream Hollywood in 1996 with director Miloš Forman's biographical film "The People vs. Larry Flynt."

Woody Harrelson portrayed Flynt, while Courtney Love played his wife Althea. Harrelson received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, and Forman was nominated for Best Director.

Flynt himself appeared in the film in a small role.

The movie presented Flynt largely through the lens of his First Amendment battles, a portrayal that was praised by many civil libertarians but criticized by feminists and other activists who argued that it minimized "Hustler's" long history of degrading and violent imagery involving women.

That conflict remained central to Flynt's legacy: he could simultaneously be viewed as a significant defender of free expression and as the publisher of material many critics considered deeply misogynistic.

Books and Political Activism

Flynt published his memoir, "An Unseemly Man: My Life as a Pornographer, Pundit, and Social Outcast," in 1996.

He later co-wrote "One Nation Under Sex" with historian David Eisenbach in 2011, examining the private sexual lives of American political leaders.

Flynt also became increasingly involved in political provocations. He offered large cash rewards for evidence exposing sexual or financial hypocrisy among prominent politicians.

During President Bill Clinton's impeachment, Flynt offered $1 million for evidence of sexual affairs involving members of Congress. Information produced through the effort helped contribute to the resignation of incoming House Speaker Bob Livingston.

Flynt later offered rewards connected to Mitt Romney's tax returns and information he believed could lead to the removal of Donald Trump from office.

Although he once briefly sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1984, Flynt generally supported Democratic candidates in later decades, including Hillary Clinton. He described his politics primarily in terms of civil liberties rather than traditional party loyalty.

Personal Life and Death

Flynt was married five times and had five children.

His fourth wife, Althea Leasure, became deeply involved in his businesses and served as co-publisher of "Hustler." She was diagnosed with AIDS and died in 1987 after drowning in a bathtub.

In 1998, Flynt married Elizabeth Berrios, who remained his wife until his death.

Flynt had a highly contentious relationship with some members of his family. His daughter Tonya Flynt-Vega became a born-again Christian and anti-pornography activist and accused her father of sexually abusing her as a child. Flynt denied the allegations.

One of his daughters, Lisa Flynt, died in a car accident in 2014.

Larry Flynt died from heart failure at his Los Angeles home on February 10, 2021, at age 78. His brother Jimmy confirmed the cause of death.

By the time he died, Flynt had spent nearly half a century operating at the intersection of sex, publishing, politics, law, and free speech. Whatever one's opinion of the business that made him rich, his 1988 Supreme Court victory left a lasting mark on American constitutional law.

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