Larry Flynt - # 258

Hustler Magazine Founder Larry Flynt Dies at Age 78

The publisher had a controversial reputation for his work in the adult entertainment industry

 

 He was number 258 on the list.

Hustler magazine founder Larry Flynt died on Wednesday at the age of 78, PEOPLE confirms.

His brother, Jimmy Flynt, tells PEOPLE, "He lived a long life."

"[The family is] fine," Jimmy adds. "It's been a terrible year for everybody and it's just one of these disastrous things that accumulates in this horrible year – just one thing after another."

Larry's publicist tells PEOPLE in a statement, "Larry Claxton Flynt Jr. passed away earlier today, Wednesday, February 10, 2021, in Los Angeles at the age of 78, from the recent onset of a sudden illness."

"He passed quietly in his sleep at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center with his wife Liz and daughter Theresa by his side," the statement concluded.

TMZ was the first to report his death, citing heart failure.

Larry's life was riddled with controversy and legal issues because of his involvement in producing explicit content.

Some of those trials and tribulations were shown in the 1996 film The People vs. Larry Flynt starring Woody Harrelson.

In 1978, Larry was shot in an attempted murder as he was heading into a court appearance.

The gunman, serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin, left the Hustler magazine mogul paralyzed from the waist down resulting in his use of a wheelchair.

He also briefly campaigned for president in 1984 and then in 2003, ran for California governor in a recall election of then-governor Gray Davis.

Ronald Reagan won the former election, while Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor in the latter.

Larry also leaves a legacy behind with Hustler TV, Hustler Casino and other adult film endeavors.

The Hustler mogul was married five times — to Mary Flynt, Peggy Flynt, Kathy Flynt, Althea Leasure — and is survived by his fifth wife, Elizabeth Berrios.

Berrios did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.

His fourth wife, Althea, died at the age of 33 from an accidental drowning in 1987, according to the Associated Press.

 

"I love her to death. [Elizabeth] knows I love and care about her. Althea was the love of my life," Larry told The Hollywood Reporter in 2013.

The Hustler mogul had five daughters and a son. One of his daughters, Lisa Flynt-Fugate, died in 2014 at age 47 in a car crash.

Larry was estranged from many of his children, his daughter Theresa told THR in the aforementioned interview. "He doesn't understand people who don't work," she said. "He offered all of his children the same thing: To go to college and get a degree and show an interest in a division of the company, and they could have a job. But none of them took him up, and he can't identify with them, so doesn't have a relationship with them."

His eldest daughter Tonya Flynt-Vega, who became a religious activist, claimed in her 1998 book Hustled that he emotionally and sexually abused her, something that he denied.

"I never raised her, and I feel saddened by what she's said," Flynt told USA Today in an archived interview. "I've taken a polygraph test and have a tape recording where my daughter called the office apologizing for the trouble she caused me."

He claimed, "She admitted she need the money. Religious groups were paying her to go around the country and speak. Her allegations just aren't true."