One of the most controversial public figures of the 20th century, porn magnate Larry Flynt, has died in Los Angeles. He was 78.
TMZ reported the pornographer had died of heart failure.
Unsatisfied with magazines Playboy and Penthouse, which he considered too tame, Flynt founded Hustler in 1974.
READ MORE: Larry Flynt sent Hustler to every member of Congress
The following year, he published paparazzi photos of former first lady Jackie Kennedy Onassis sunbathing nude.
The magazine presented itself as being more lowbrow and explicit than its competitors.
Flynt was shot by serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin in 1978, and spent the rest of his life paralysed and in a wheelchair.
Franklin later said he was outraged by an interracial photo shoot in Hustler.
Flynt's magazines were controversial not just for being explicit but for their degrading and often violent depiction of women.
One issue depicted a woman being put through a meat grinder on the cover.
He spent much of the 1980s fighting legal battles, famously shouting "f--- this court" during a hearing on the Supreme Court.
He was jailed for six months in 1983 for wearing an American flag as a nappy during a different trial that same year.
The Supreme Court would later clear him in a freedom of speech case after Hustler published a satirical piece depicting televangelist Jerry Falwell boasting of drunken sex in an outdoor toilet with his mother.
Flynt was a perpetual troublemaker for conservative politicians, offering US$1 million for any proof of Republicans being unfaithful during the Clinton impeachment trial.
Incoming House Speaker Bob Livingston resigned in 1998 after Flynt issued a press release referring to four alleged affairs.
"I very much regret having to tell you that I've been Flynted," Mr Livingston reportedly told his colleagues.
In 2017, Flynt offered a $10 million reward for any evidence leading to Donald Trump's impeachment.
READ MORE: Larry Flynt offers millions for Trump dirt
A movie about his life, The People v Larry Flynt, was released in 1996. Woody Harrelson was nominated for an Oscar for depicting Flynt.
He married five times and had five children.
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