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Larry Flynt Makes Lowball Offer To Buy The Playboy Mansion
The Playboy Mansion. October 16, 2004 (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
The Playboy Mansion is up for sale and there's already one interested buyer. However, he doesn't seem too keen on the terms of the sale and made a lowball offer.Hustler head honcho Larry Flynt wants to buy the famed Holmby Hills pad and turn it into his own party pad, but Flynt thinks the asking price of $200 million is too steep. TMZ reports that Flynt thinks it's worth only $40 million, but is willing to go up to $80 million.
Not only that, it was initially reported that Flynt wanted to kick out Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner, who wanted to live at the mansion for the rest of life—even after a sale.
It's a change of heart of Flynt, who told TMZ just a week ago that he couldn't afford the place and added, "I don't want his sticky sheets." Flynt doesn't want any of Hef's problems either—an internal Hustler memo says they'd want Hefner to be liable for any legal issues from the past, including the alleged sexual assaults committed by Bill Cosby on the property.
"We feel it is an excellent place for The Hustler Club and Hustler Mansion," Harry Mohney, a business partner of Flynt, told the New York Daily News. Mohney says Hustler would bring the mansion back to its glory days, throwing at least three swingin' parties per week. "Hef lost the fact and focus that he was in the sex business and magazine business," Mohney told NYDN. “He thought he was Vanity Fair and lost that he was in the business of the erotic." In October, Playboy announced they would no longer be publishing nude centerfolds, calling them "passé." It also appears that Flynt wants the potential purchase to symbolize a takeover. As part of his offer, he wants Hef to write a column for Hustler and help pick the girls for the magazine.
It seems unlikely that any of this will come to fruition. Hefner reportedly has to approve the sale, and $80 million is way short of his asking price.
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