Althea Flynt (November 6, 1953 – June 27, 1987), née Leasure, was the fourth wife of Larry Flynt and the co-publisher of Flynt's adult pornography magazine, Hustler.
Leasure was born November 6, 1953 in Marietta, Ohio, USA. Althea and her three sisters, Sherry, Debbie, and Marsha, and one brother, Richard, came from an abusive home. When Althea was eight, her father Richard shot her mother June and grandfather dead, then fatally shot himself. Althea's grandmother was present during the incident, but survived by hiding in the nearby creek. Althea was put into an orphanage, where she remained until she ran away as a teenager.
Althea was bisexual.[1] She met Larry at age 17 in 1971, when she applied for a job as a stripper at his club in Columbus, Ohio. They were married on August 21, 1976. Althea was Hustler's first life-size centerfold, and she was involved with the management and publication of the magazine throughout her 11-year marriage; she continued to run the magazine and kept it afloat during Larry's brief return to religion in 1977 and his campaign for President of the United States in 1984.[2]
In the mid-1980s, Althea planned a new non-pornographic magazine called The Rage, to focus on the punk subculture. The Rage was ultimately abandoned due to the expense of Flynt's 1984 Presidential run.[2]
Althea began using the drugs that Larry was prescribed for pain after he was shot in 1978, and developed an addiction. She was diagnosed with AIDS in 1983; Flynt claims that she contracted the disease from a blood transfusion during a hysterectomy, and that she always used clean needles when using drugs.
Althea died aged 33 when she drowned at the couple's Bel-Air mansion in Los Angeles, California on June 27, 1987. According to reports, she passed out from an overdose and drowned in the bathtub.[1] Flynt, however, states that at the time she was in the advanced stages of AIDS and would have died within that year, regardless. (By that point Flynt was taking care of her and he claims that she was practically bedridden.) Althea Flynt is buried in the Flynt family cemetery plot, located on Lakeville in Salyersville, Kentucky.[3]
In the 1996 movie The People vs. Larry Flynt she was portrayed by Courtney Love, who was nominated for a Golden Globe.