Hustler founder Larry Flynt offers 10 million for dirty stories
When Larry Flynt, the founder of the adult magazine *Hustler*, calls for revelations, they don't necessarily have to be of an adult nature. Shortly before his 75th birthday, he is offering $10 million for dirt on Donald Trump.
The full-page ad in the Washington Post was impossible to miss: In the ad placed in mid-October, he asks - in bold print and capital letters - for compromising material that could lead to the impeachment of the US president.
Flynt told Deutsche Presse-Agentur a week before his birthday that he receives more than 300 tips every day. But it will take several weeks to evaluate all the tips, he said through his spokeswoman. 75 years old on Wednesday, November 1st.
The publisher, who claims to be a free speech activist on his website, gives a whole list of reasons why he believes it is important to get rid of the "dangerously incompetent" Trump "before it's too late". This is his "patriotic duty" - and that of all Americans. Sure, he could spend the 10 million dollars on other things, "but what good would that do me in a world being destroyed by the most powerful moron of all time?".
Magazine in the dirty corner
Flynt minces no words and spares no expense in digging up dirt on conservative politicians. In 2012, the flamboyant publisher offered one million dollars for information about the finances of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. He had previously offered rewards to uncover politicians' extramarital affairs.
For Flynt, George W. Bush in 2001 was "the stupidest president we have ever had". The publisher celebrated his 62nd birthday in Paris during the 2004 election campaign "to escape the nauseating climate of the US election campaign".
Disgusting and disgusting - these are accusations that the publisher of numerous magazines, of which "Hustler Magazine" is just one, often heard himself. After a poor childhood in rural Kentucky and Indiana, Flynt joined the military as a teenager. At the age of 22, he founded his first Hustler strip club. In 1974, he spiced up a small advertising leaflet with news about his growing business to create the first Hustler issue.
Hustler set itself apart from glossy men's magazines such as Playboy and Penthouse with smut deep below the belt. The magazine repeatedly made headlines as a result. For example in 1975, when Flynt published nude photos of former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis taken by paparazzi.
The assassination
Flynt has always taken up the fight against censorship and for freedom of expression. He stood trial countless times and also spent a short time in prison. In 1977, he was sentenced to a quarter of a century behind bars for distributing pornography, but an appeals court overturned the sentence. After a court hearing in the US state of Georgia, Flynt was shot from ambush in March 1978. Since the assassination, he has been paralyzed from the waist down; on special occasions, Flynt drives up in a gold-plated wheelchair. The shooter was a racist fanatic who later admitted to the shooting when he was already in prison for other crimes.
With the film "Larry Flynt - The Naked Truth", Oscar-winner Milos Forman ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", "Amadeus") paid tribute to Flynt's controversial balancing act between pornography and freedom of expression. It won the Golden Bear at the 1997 Berlinale. The real Flynt liked the film adaptation of his life and also its leading actor Woody Harrelson. He felt honored, said Flynt, after all, the life of a man who is still alive is rarely filmed. (Barbara Munker, DPA)
