He ain’t got time to bleed, but apparently he does got time to file lawsuits. Jesse (formerly “The Body”) Ventura has filed a suit against HarperCollins, the publisher of American Sniper, for defamation of character. Ventura claims that a derogatory story written about him within the book never took place. The suit alleges the resulting publicity and controversy “generated by the false and defamatory story about Ventura substantially increased sales of American Sniper, thereby generating millions of dollars in revenues and profits for HarperCollins.” The story itself isn’t actually that compelling—Chris Kyle, the late Navy SEAL and author, claimed he once got into a bar fight with Ventura over disparaging remarks Ventura made about SEALs—but it does involve Kyle nicknaming Ventura “Scruff Face,” which is a pretty good burn.
This actually marks the second time that Ventura has sued over the book: Ventura won a lawsuit in July against Kyle’s estate for $1.8 million, after a federal jury agreed that the story in American Sniper did constitute defamation. Presumably that legal verdict (currently on appeal) emboldened Ventura to emerge once more from Mexico—where he last told CNBC he was hiding “so that the drones can’t find me”—and file suit against HarperCollins.
American Sniper has been turned into a film starring Bradley Cooper, due to be released on December 25. Jesse Ventura has been turned into a hilarious caricature by James Adomian, whom we can all agree makes for a much better Jesse Ventura than Ventura himself, if not necessarily a saner one.