Televangelist Jim Bakker, Who Built a Christian Empire and Lost It All, Dead at 86

A Rise Unlike Any Other in American Religious Broadcasting

Jim Bakker, who built a multimillion-dollar empire and lived in opulence before being disgraced by a sex scandal, a fraud conviction, and a divorce from television co-host Tammy Faye, died on Monday at age 86. His death was announced on his official Facebook account by his second wife, Lori Bakker, who said he "went home to be with the Lord this evening."

Bakker was born in Muskegon, Michigan, and attended North Central Bible College in Minneapolis, where he met Tammy Faye LaValley, who would become his first wife. The couple married in 1961 and left college to begin a travelling ministry. He joined the Christian Broadcasting Network in the 1960s before relocating to Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1974, where he and Tammy Faye launched The PTL Club, which became the flagship program of his PTL ministry and broadcast corporation.

Jim and Tammy Faye started with a small TV ministry and eventually created a multimillion-dollar operation with 2,000 employees and a 2,300-acre Heritage USA complex in Fort Mill, South Carolina. At its peak, the PTL ministry drew 13 million viewers on 200 TV stations and raked in $129 million a year. It was one of the most remarkable media empires ever assembled in the name of faith — and one of the most spectacular to collapse.

Scandal, Fraud, and the Fall From Grace

The empire began to unravel in 1987 after revelations emerged about a payment connected to church secretary Jessica Hahn, who accused Bakker of sexual assault. Bakker denied the assault. The scandal forced him to step down from PTL, while investigations into the ministry's finances exposed much broader allegations of financial misconduct.

In 1989, a federal jury convicted Bakker on 24 counts of fraud and conspiracy stemming from his fundraising operation. Prosecutors accused PTL of selling more than 150,000 "lifetime partnerships" promising lodging at Heritage USA while failing to build enough accommodation to fulfill those commitments. Judge Robert Potter told Bakker before sentencing him: "Those of us who do have a religion are sick of being saps for money-grubbing preachers and priests."

Bakker was initially sentenced to 45 years in prison and fined $500,000. An appeals court later ordered a new sentencing hearing, and his prison term was reduced to eight years. He served just less than five years before he was paroled. Further reporting during the trial had also disclosed lavish spending on the Bakkers' behalf, including an air-conditioned doghouse at their lakefront home and gold-plated bathroom fixtures.

Life After Prison — and Another Controversy

Tammy Faye stood by him for several years, but in 1992 she filed for divorce. She slowly rebuilt her life as a Christian TV personality and died of cancer in 2007. Bakker later remarried and returned to televangelism, founding Morningside Church in Blue Eye, Missouri. After being divorced by Tammy Faye, he married Lori Beth Graham in 1998, and together they adopted five children.

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. His return to the airwaves was not without fresh controversy. Jim Bakker and his southwestern Missouri church paid restitution of $156,000 to settle a lawsuit that accused the TV pastor of falsely claiming that a health supplement could cure the coronavirus.

A Legacy Defined by Both Devotion and Disgrace

Bakker and Tammy Faye became 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.

Following the collapse of PTL and Bakker's imprisonment, the scandal had a profound impact on televangelism in the United States, leading to increased skepticism and scrutiny of similar ministries. His story became a defining cultural parable of the 1980s — a cautionary tale about the intersection of faith, fame, and money that still resonates today.

Lori Bakker's tribute to her late husband reflected the complexity of his legacy. "For 66 years, Jim gave his life to preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ," she said. "He was a pioneer of Christian television, but to me, he was my husband, my best friend and the man I