It's the Body versus the Brothel - but Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura may be learning the hard way that times come when a big mouth works best when kept shut.
Ventura may have admitted visiting two Nevada brothels in his Navy days, but that doesn't mean he's thrilled about one of them capitalizing on the visit. He's gunning for the Moonlight Bunny Ranch to stop the milking, but if you think Bunny Ranch owner Dennis Hof is going to say "where" when Ventura says "bend," that, apparently, is a lot of bull.
Not only will he continue cashing in on Ventura's own published admission to the visit, he's threatening to make the prostitute whom he visited available to the talk show circuit, including shock jock Howard Stern, unless the Body backs off.
"He used our name in his book to sensationalize it," Hof fumed to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. "He made a big mistake. I'm not going to say, 'Oh, I'm sorry, Jesse'."
Ventura's attorney has already written Hof demanding he stop using Ventura's name to promote the Bunny Ranch, but Hof says he won't concede except to use only direct Ventura quotes in the future and to rename the room now bearing Ventura's.
But the Star-Tribune says the room, to be renamed "The Governor's Suite," will still contain Ventura memorabilia and what Hof says is "a wrestling ring to have sex in."
What inspired all the hoopla in the first place was Ventura himself describing a visit he made to the Bunny Ranch in 1970, while he served in the Navy SEALs . Ventura's autobiography says he and a Navy friend went to the Bunny Ranch and another Nevada brothel before they were due to ship out overseas.
Ventura even described obtaining the prostitute's services and ten dollars for a belt made of machine-gun casings which he wore at the time. And he bragged about being one of the few patrons to gain rather than spend money there. "She paid him," Hof scoffed. "That makes him a prostitute as far as I'm concerned."
