What’s inside this naughty book? Let these two women show you in Coral Gables
Besties Lea Black, of “Real Housewives” and skin care fame, and Liz Flynt, chairwoman of Hustler and widow of Larry Flynt, the founder and publisher of Hustler magazine, dished politics, sex, friendship and famous names before an engaged audience at Flynt’s recent book signing at Coral Gables’ Books & Books.
“Larry passed away over four years ago and Lea was actually one of the first people to call me,” Flynt said at the start of their chat, an unwrapped copy of “Hustler: 50 Years of Freedom” set on a table between them. “I had just gotten home from Cedars Sinai and I just walked into my bedroom and my phone rang and I looked at it and it said ‘Lea Black.’ And I said I have to answer it.”
Philanthropist Black, a friend of the couple for years who listed the Star Island home she shared with lawyer husband Roy Black and their son RJ for more than $34 million a few years ago, moderated a conversation with Flynt on the first Saturday in June at the bookstore. They were promoting Flynt’s new coffee table tribute to the legacy her husband built with his raunchy magazine, Hustler.
Florida politics
The freewheeling duo delved as much into local Florida and national politics as they did pushing “Hustler 50.” The coffee table tome, its black cover embossed with gold lettering and shrouded in shrink wrap, includes reproductions of dozens of covers and pictorials and Flynt’s crusading columns against censorship that tackled issues including gay, transgender and women’s rights decades ago.
Not surprisingly, Flynt and Black both are no fans of politicians pushing current censorship efforts on books and in higher education curriculum. Black, a philanthropist also famed for her social gatherings, said she aims to stage one of her fundraiser soirees to promote David Jolly, the former Tampa-area congressman who left the Republican Party seven years ago and who hopes to be the Democratic governor-elect for Florida in 2026.
Famous faces
“Hustler: 50 Years of Freedom” celebrates the magazine Larry Flynt launched in 1974 that made Playboy and Penthouse fans blush. Bold face names abound in its 204 glossy pages including John F. Kennedy Jr., whose mother, the late Jackie Onassis, was the subject of a 1975 pictorial when a paparazzo with a long lens and a publisher with a fat wallet, shared images of her undressed. JFK Jr. supposedly forgave Flynt for running the pictures, Liz Flynt said.
Actor Woody Harrelson wrote the foreword. He portrayed Flynt in Milos Forman’s 1996 film, “The People vs. Larry Flynt.” Harrelson’s closing line particularly pleased the author, she told the Books & Books audience. “I am glad Liz is steering the ship now,” he wrote. “Long may she sail.”
There’s even a photo inside “Hustler 50” of President Jimmy Carter and Liz and Larry Flynt all grinning at a Beverly Hills fundraiser in 2006.
“Larry rubbed elbows with some all-American luminaries who, sadly, never sat down for Hustler interviews. Oh, to have been a fly on the wall during these encounters,” the caption reads. The fly might have buzzed about Carter’s Playboy interview in the November 1977 issue of rival Hugh Hefner’s magazine.
Supreme Court victories
But Flynt’s magazine won its colorful publisher lasting fame, and infamy, too, as his obscenity trials became landmark victory cases for the First Amendment.
“Larry always wanted to be remembered for expanding the parameters of free speech [by] going to the U.S. Supreme Court and making satire protected speech,” Flynt said. “One of Larry’s concerns was censorship. Because back in the day when Hitler took over, he didn’t start with the classics. He started with the pornography and went up to the classics. And Larry said, ‘We can’t take anything for granted.’ And he always held that near and dear to his heart.”
She has expanded his empire since his death at 78 in February 2021 by growing Hustler’s gaming operations and retail stores, including one in Fort Lauderdale. (And, yes, keeping the magazine’s print edition alive somehow despite the free, easy access to online X-rated content.)
Larry Flynt’s hated hypocrisy and his regret was never attending college, said his widow.
But Flynt was the subject of plenty of mass media law classes at universities nationwide, including a long-ago Florida International University graduate level journalism class. (Yep, the offensive Jerry Falwell Campari mock ad parody that gave Flynt a landmark victory in 1988 for protected free speech for satire in the Hustler v. Falwell case appears in the book.)
Books & Books is familiar territory for Flynt. Her late husband spoke there in August 2004 to promote his book, “Sex, Lies & Politics: The Naked Truth,” which broadsided the Bush administration and bashed Florida’s botched election in 2000.
Blasted by his political enemies as little more than “a bottom-feeder,” Flynt responded. “True,” he chuckled, “but look what I found when I got down there.”
This story was originally published June 12, 2025 at 10:38 AM.
