Larry Flynt Reportedly Interested In Buying Playboy Mansion, Wants To Give Hugh Hefner The Boot
Consider Larry Flynt and Hugh Hefner bitter foes to the end. Even in their advanced ages, the men are trying to outmaneuver one another and if Larry Flynt has his way, he’ll score the coup de grâce by buying Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion right out from under him. As previously reported by Inquisitr, Hugh Hefner announced that the Playboy Mansion is now up for sale, to the tune of $200 million. According to a report by the gossip hounds at TMZ, Hef might have a buyer in Hustler publisher Larry Flynt. Of course, given the enmity between the business rivals, there are a few strings attached to any potential business deal.
Hugh Hefner, now 89 years old, has previously stated that whoever buys the Playboy Mansion must permit him to live there until he dies. For his part, the irreverent 73-year-old Larry Flynt says he’ll be happy to take Hefner’s digs as his own, but he wants them sooner rather than later. And that means he wants Hef to hit the bricks. The news is something of a reversal from Flynt’s previous assertions that he wasn’t interested in acquiring the 29-room Beverly Hills estate.
Harry Mohney, an executive with the company that operates some of Larry Flynt’s business holdings, told the New York Daily News that the Playboy Mansion is an ideal location for some of Hustler’s regular engagements.
“Larry and I have talked about it and are preparing a bid,” Mahoney said. “We feel it is an excellent place for The Hustler Club and Hustler Mansion.”
Not surprisingly, Larry Flynt’s business partner also took the opportunity to take a swing at Hugh Hefner and Playboy Magazine in discussing why Hefner might have felt it necessary to offer the iconic mansion for sale at this point in his life.
“Hef lost the fact and focus that he was in the sex business and magazine business,” advised Mohney. “He thought he was Vanity Fair and lost that he was in the business of the erotic.”
Where Flynt and company see Hugh Hefner as an aging dinosaur, the Hustler crew is bent on evolving to keep up with changing times and tastes in the adult entertainment industry. In 2015, Flynt proclaimed that Hustler Magazine‘s days were numbered and that efforts would be shifted to developing online content in the near future.
To be sure, acquiring the Playboy Mansion would be a serious coup for Larry Flynt. But the property comes with a good deal of baggage. In 2015, former Playboy model and love interest of Hugh Hefner Holly Madison publicly claimed that Hefner rigidly controlled his many girlfriends who lived in the mansion. She also said Hef openly encouraged regular use of Quaaludes and other drugs. Embattled comedian Bill Cosby has been accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl at the Playboy Mansion in allegations that date back to 1974.
TMZ notes that it is highly unlikely that Hugh Hefner will ultimately sell the Playboy Mansion to Larry Flynt given their history of mutual disdain. To be sure, most of the more recent shade has been initiated by Larry Flynt. Late last year, Flynt blasted Hugh Hefner in the media, asserting that Hef had “lost his mind” when he decided to stop including nude photo spreads in issues of Playboy.
In 2009, Flynt also bragged that he had slept with more women than Hugh Hefner – despite the fact that Larry Flynt is a decade and a half younger than Hefner. It’s difficult to know what he is using to tally his numbers but at any rate, if Hugh Hefner has any say in the matter, Larry Flynt won’t be racking up any future conquests in Hugh Hefner’s former boudoir.
[Photo by David Livingston/Getty Images]
