Doctors say Larry Flynt, the hard-boiled publisher of Hustler magazine, “is likely to recover but may never be the same again.“
LOS ANGELES – Hustler magazine’s owner/editor Larry Flynt is under 24-hour sedation today after voluntarily admitting himself to a Los Angeles psychiatric clinic Sunday night.
Doctors said Flynt was in a state of “extreme shock, similar to the worst cases of PTSD we have ever seen,” following his harrowing exposure to a series of confidential letters and dossiers concerning US president Donald Trump. “His psyche has received a tremendous and perhaps permanently debilitating trauma,” they said.
The celebrated pornographer and free-speech advocate recently hit the headlines when he offered $10 million to anyone providing salacious and/or scandalous information leading to Trump’s impeachment and removal from office. Hustler administrators said yesterday that the magazine had been “inundated” with sworn testimonies, videos, 8mm film and recorded phone calls, all of which Mr Flynt insisted on reviewing himself.
“We tried to warn him,” said editorial assistant, Thelma Sleaze, “but Larry courageously insisted on taking a crate full of the worst and most disgusting material home with him. ‘Man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,’ he said, with what seemed like a nervous laugh. I think maybe he knew.”
A sobbing Sleaze continued: “Late on Sunday night I got an incoherent message from Larry on my answering machine. I rushed over to his place where I found him lying on the floor convulsed in some kind of seizure. He was foaming at the mouth and retching continuously.”
Asked if Larry Flynt had said anything intelligible, Sleaze replied: “Well, it was hard to make out through all the gagging and vomit, but it sounded like ‘I…yech…arglebargle…I mean…aargh…how could?…Jes…help me, I need a doctor…’
“I then called 911 and he was rushed to Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital, where he more or less voluntarily admitted himself and was put under immediate sedation.”
At a hastily assembled news conference, Resnick psychiatrists said that Flynt’s emotional and neurological diagnoses were among the worst they’d ever seen, though they hoped that after “careful and sustained therapy” he might recover.
“However,” added lead physician Dr Adam K. Shmendrick, “there is considerable danger of permanent psychic numbing. The poor man’s been to hell and back. I’ve never seen anything like it in a lifetime of dealing with the worst cases of trauma — tortured Viet Nam POWs, child-rape victims and actresses who spent time with Harvey Weinstein.
“Some of the material he was exposed to is so horrific that it is frankly remarkable we are able to offer even a qualified positive prognosis.
“Fortunately a life time of dealing with Hustler contributors and cartoonists apparently prepared him for the initial shock and may well have saved his life. It’s kind of like inoculation to Ebola or the Black Death.”
