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Jim Bakker, Disgraced Televangelist, Dies at 86
Confirmed
In Short: Jim Bakker, a televangelist who built a multimillion-dollar media empire before being jailed for fraud and conspiracy, has died at 86.
Jim Bakker, a televangelist who rose to fame in the 1980s with his show 'The PTL Club,' died on Monday at the age of 86, according to his second wife, Lori Bakker.
Bakker and his first wife, Tammy Faye, founded 'The PTL Club' in 1974, which at its peak attracted 13 million viewers daily.
The couple's empire began to crumble in the late 1980s after Bakker was embroiled in a sex scandal involving a former church secretary, Jessica Hahn, and later convicted of mail and wire fraud.
In 1987, Bakker resigned from the PTL ministry after revelations of a 1980 sexual encounter with Hahn, who received a $265,000 payoff with ministry funds.
Bakker was defrocked of his ministerial credentials and sentenced to 45 years in prison, though the sentence was later reduced.
After his release from prison in 1994, Bakker renounced the 'prosperity gospel' he once preached and wrote a book titled 'I Was Wrong,' marrying his second wife, Lori, in 1998.
The couple launched a new TV ministry in 2003 and began taping 'The Jim Bakker Show' in 2008.
Lori Bakker described her late husband as 'a pioneer of Christian television' and 'my best friend.'
Bakker's career resurgence included staunch support for Donald Trump and a controversial claim that Christians would launch a civil war if Trump were to be impeached.
In 2021, Bakker and his production company settled a lawsuit accusing them of falsely claiming a product called Silver Solution could cure COVID-19.
Bakker's life was marked by opulence and scandal, from owning a private jet and multiple homes to facing prison time for fraud.
Detractors often mocked PTL as 'pass the loot,' highlighting Bakker's daily exhortations to viewers for donations to his ministry.
What this adds
Bakker's death was revealed on social media by his second wife, Lori Bakker, on Facebook and Instagram.
The Guardian noted that Bakker's journey from the TV pulpit to a prison cell inspired comparisons to the corrupt character of the fictional preacher-huckster Elmer Gantry.
Bakker's revival after prison included a new television show and a shift in his religious messaging, though he remained a controversial figure in the evangelical community.
What's confirmed
- US televangelist Jim Bakker's death was announced on Monday by his second wife Lori Bakker US televangelist Jim Bakker, who built a multimillion-dollar media empire before being jailed for fraud and conspiracy, has died aged 86.
- However Bakker's first program The PTL Club, "Praise the Lord" or "People That Love" was what cemented his fame with his first wife Tammy Faye.
What's still developing
- The Bakkers had a famously opulent lifestyle, owning a private jet, multiple homes, luxury cars, jewellery and even an air-conditioned dog house.
- The death of Bakker, whose journey from the TV pulpit to a prison cell in the 1980s inspired comparisons to the corrupt character of the fictional preacher-huckster Elmer Gantry, was revealed on social media by his second wife, Lori Bakker.
- “It is with a broken heart that I share that my beloved husband, Jim Bakker, went home to be with the Lord this evening,” she wrote on the Facebook and Instagram pages of her husband’s latest television ministry.
- “Those of us who do have a religion are sick of being saps for money-grubbing preachers and priests,” Judge Robert Potter told Bakker before sentencing him.
- Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, his first wife, had started with a small TV ministry and eventually created a multimillion-dollar operation with 2,000 employees and the 2,300-acre (930-hectare) Heritage USA complex in Fort Mill, South Carolina.
- “I’ve had a second chance at life. And I have a beautiful wife who loves me,” Bakker told CNN in 2000, referring to his second wife, Lori, whom he married in 1998.
- In 2008, they began taping The Jim Bakker Show at a 600-acre development called Morningside near the tourism city of Branson, Missouri.
- Bakker had been among the most popular of the Christian preachers who thrived on US television in the 1980s, achieving fame on the show The PTL Club.
- Bakker spent four and a half years in prison after being convicted in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1989 of defrauding followers in a scheme involving holidays at his Heritage USA Christian theme park and resort.
- To get viewers to the Rapture he said was sure to come, Bakker sold buckets of freeze-dried food with a shelf life of 30 years, fuel-less generators, doomsday guides and a magical elixir — “Silver Solution” — that could cure the coronavirus and other unpleasantries.
- A man of confounding contradictions, Bakker died Monday, his wife announced in a statement on his Instagram account.
- It was all heady stuff for Bakker, who often said that as a youth he had few expectations.