Absolutely. I have no doubt in my mind that his whole shtick was exactly that - a shtick. If you want to call it trolling, you can I guess, but I'd be more inclined to say he was just playing a character. If you go back and look at his earliest stuff, it's pretty obvious just how over the top it is, complete with the goofy shirtless guy and such. I thought it was funny for a bit back then and that it was even a bit clever; I couldn't believe people were actually mad, like it was real.
I have no idea what the real guy is like. A saint? I'd doubt it. That doesn't mean that the character portrayed wasn't a character.