Listen to this article
Estimated 5 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.
Jim Bakker, who along with his first wife Tammy Faye built an evangelical empire around the hugely successful The PTL Club TV show, only to lose it all over a sex scandal and financial crimes, has died. He was 86.
Bakker died Monday, his second wife, Lori Bakker, said in a statement on the Facebook and Instagram pages of her husband’s latest television ministry. His cause of death was not immediately clear.
“He was a pioneer of Christian television, but to me, he was my husband, my best friend and the man I was honoured to walk beside through so many seasons of life and ministry,” she said.
The pair lived near the Missouri entertainment town of Branson and filmed their TV show The Jim Bakker Show there since it launched in 2003. Bakker suffered a stroke in 2020.
But it was another evangelical program that made Jim and his first wife, Tammy Faye Bakker, cultural icons — so much so that they were often skewered in the 1980s and 1990s by late-night comedians and parodied on Saturday Night Live. A theatrical movie on their lives, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, was released in September 2021.
At its peak in the mid-1980s, the Bakkers’ ministry included not only the TV show drawing up to 13 million nightly viewers, but also the Christian-based Heritage USA theme park and hotel in Fort Mill, S.C.
Bakker hugs a supporter after a PTL Camp Meeting show. (Will And Deni McIntyre/Getty Images)
Bakker was born in Muskegon, Mich., and attended North Central Bible College in Minneapolis, where he met Tammy Faye. They married in 1961 and dropped out of college to start their own travelling ministry — he preached, she sang and played the accordion as they crossed the country visiting churches and tent revivals.
They caught the attention of televangelist Pat Robertson, and in 1965 launched a children’s show on Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). By 1966, he was hosting The 700 Club, a Christian talk show.
Drew millions of viewers
Bakker left CBN in 1972 and two years later formed the PTL Satellite Network. The PTL Club — PTL stands for “Praise the Lord” — became its signature show.
When it hit its heyday in the 1980s, The PTL Club was drawing millions of viewers — and bringing in millions of dollars annually from followers.
The show featured chats with guests and Christian entertainers. Bakker offered upbeat sermons and Tammy Faye — charismatic and always wearing her trademark heavy mascara — sang. Most episodes were taped at their sprawling complex just south of Charlotte, N.C.
The couple was so famous that they were often parodied by TV comedians for their lavish lifestyle and Tammy Faye’s abundant makeup.
In its heyday in the 1980s, The PTL Club drew millions of viewers. Above, Bakker prays with the TV crew in 1978. (Will & Deni McIntyre/Getty Images)
Sex scandal and financial crimes
In March 1987, their empire began to crack when Bakker admitted to a sexual encounter with church clerk Jessica Hahn. Bakker was forced to resign from his own empire, turning over operations to pastor and broadcaster Jerry Falwell.
Tammy Faye stuck by Bakker, often with tears running down her mascara, even as many saw his downfall as a fitting symbol of the greed and hypocrisy of the 1980s.
Things only got worse.
In 1988, Bakker was indicted for mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy after an investigation of PTL’s finances. He was convicted and sentenced to 45 years in federal prison, though the sentence was later reduced to eight years.
Bakker leaves court with lawyers after being found guilty of mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy in Charlotte, N.C., in 1989. (Alan Marler/The Associated Press)
At a news conference after Bakker was found guilty, Tammy Faye stood in front of the microphones and sang the hymn, On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand.
Their marriage later crumbled and Tammy Faye divorced Bakker in 1992, just short of their 31st anniversary, while he was still in prison. She later married Roe Messner, a building contractor whose projects included the Heritage USA theme park. Messner was convicted of bankruptcy fraud in 1995 and spent about two years in prison.
Tammy Faye died of colon cancer in 2007.
Launched new TV show
Bakker started his life over after he was released on parole in 1994, renouncing the “prosperity gospel” he once preached and writing a book titled I Was Wrong.
He married his second wife, Lori, in 1998. The couple launched The Jim Bakker Show on the PTL Satellite Network five years later.
In June 2021, Bakker and his Morningside Church Productions Inc. settled a lawsuit accusing him of falsely claiming the health supplement Silver Solution could cure COVID-19. The settlement called for $156,000 US in refunds to people who paid money or gave contributions to obtain the product in the early days of the pandemic.
The lawsuit said Bakker and a guest made the cure claim during 11 episodes in February and March of 2020.
Bakker and Tammy Faye had two children. He and his second wife adopted five children in 2002.