As previously reported, Jesse Ventura’s lawsuit
against the estate of the late Navy SEAL Chris Kyle began last week. Ventura had
sued Kyle over a story in his book American Sniper: The Autobiography of the
Most Lethal Sniper in US Military History in which Kyle said he knocked down a
man he called “Scruff Face” for making disparaging remarks about SEALs and the
military as a whole. Kyle later identified Ventura as the man in question, while
the former WWE star claims that the event never happened at all.
Ventura filed the lawsuit before Kyle was shot to
death on a gun range in 2013 and continued to move forward with it after his
death. In yesterday’s testimony, Ventura maintained his stance that the incident
which Kyle described never happened and that the publication of the story led to
the end of his TV show Conspiracy Theory on TruTV, along with other job offers
extended to him disappearing. Ventura said that while he was never told upfront
that the offers vanished due to the book, “they never tell you why.”
Ventura noted that he went from making $13 million
the decade before the book was published to $190,000 in 2012 and directly blames
that story. The attorney for Kyle’s estate noted that he would be bringing forth
witnesses to the alleged incident to back up Kyle’s story. Ventura’s testimony
is expected to continue today.
