LOS ANGELES — Mike Kulich, a veteran of the adult entertainment industry and master at giving publicity a spin, has passed away.
Circumstances surrounding his death at his West Hollywood, Calif., apartment were not immediately known at post time. He was 29.
“We don’t know everything yet,” Regan Forester, a close friend of Kulich’s, told XBIZ. “His fiancée was at a music festival out of town and couldn’t reach him. So [she] sent somebody over to their apartment to check on him. They found him; he went in his sleep in bed.
“He was supposed to be married in less than a month,” Forester said.
Kulich, born in Bridgeport, Conn., worked in several areas of the adult entertainment business in his career spanning more than a dozen years in the adult entertainment biz.
After four years of B2B sales managing hundreds of accounts at IVD/ECN, Kulich launched DVD Makers, a DVD replication company servicing the adult business.
Later, Kulich started up Monarchy Distribution connecting individual talent to mainstream DVD and broadcast distribution.
In 2012, Kulich helped co-found SkweezMe.com, a streaming video-on-demand service.
After winning a 2014 XBIZ Award for Marketing Campaign of the Year for his Monarchy Distribution label, Kulich rolled out the public relations firm Stunner PR, which, in addition to publicity, also offered design and social media services.
In April, he rebranded Stunner PR as MAK PR, which provides "online reputation management, brand building, media monitoring, internal communications, crisis management, media relations and event management."
Reports of his death swirled on social media, including Facebook and Twitter, on Sunday.
Holly Ruprecht of Hustler said that Kulich was “another industry friend gone to soon.”
Adult star Alana Evans said that her “focus just totally changed. It's true. Mike Kulich is gone. Wow. Just fucking wow. His poor little baby boy [referring to his five-year-old son, Tyler].”
Vice’s Mitchell Sunderland, a reporter who dealt with Kulich, called him “the craziest publicist I ever knew.”
XBIZ will report additional details when they become available.
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