Televangelist Jim Bakker, who built a faith-based empire before resigning amid scandal, dies at 86

By Ronnie Glassberg, CNN

(CNN) — Televangelist Jim Bakker, who rose to national prominence in the 1970s and ‘80s before stepping down from his ministry amid scandal, has died. He was 86.

“It is with a broken heart that I share that my beloved husband, Jim Bakker, went home to be with the Lord this evening,” according to an announcement from his wife, Lori Bakker, shared on the Jim Bakker Show’s Facebook Monday evening.

“For 66 years, Jim gave his life to preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He was a pioneer of Christian television, but to me, he was my husband, my best friend, and the man I was honored to walk beside through so many seasons of life and ministry,” she wrote in her statement.

“Jim loved people deeply. He loved this ministry, and he loved the friends and partners who stood with him throughout the years,” she wrote. “Even in his final days, his heart was still for the work of God and for the Gospel to continue reaching the world.”

The statement did not include a cause of death or details about the circumstances.

During his rise to fame, Bakker and his then-wife, the late Tammy Faye Messner, ran the evangelistic empire “Praise the Lord,” or PTL – and eventually their own theme park – from suburban Charlotte, North Carolina, for some 15 years.

The couple hosted “The PTL Club,” one of the best-known Christian TV programs of its time. Messner, who divorced Bakker in the ‘90s and later remarried, died in 2007.

Bakker resigned from the PTL ministry in 1987 amid a financial and sex scandal involving a secretary, Jessica Hahn, who he had paid to keep quiet.

Two years later, Bakker was charged with fraud and sentenced to 45 years in prison, though he served just under five.

“I wanted people to believe in my dream, and my dream became more important than the people,” Bakker told CNN’s Larry King in 2000. “When the dream of Christian community becomes more important than the community, that’s when it’s a sin.”

Rising to national prominence

Jim and Tammy Faye met at North Central Bible College in Minneapolis, she told CNN in a 2003 interview. They married in 1961.

Their path to TV fame started with puppet shows at a church. Televangelist Pat Robertson, who had a fledgling TV station in Portsmouth, Virginia, asked Bakker to bring the show to television. Bakker agreed, under the condition that they could eventually launch a “Tonight” show style program for Christians, Messner told CNN.

From 1966 to 1973, the Bakkers hosted “700 Club,” which was syndicated across the nation.

“It just snowballed on us,” Tammy Faye said.

After about eight years at Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network, the Bakkers parted ways with the network. The move, Tammy Faye said, came after Robertson started reducing the number of nights for their show.

In 1974, they moved to Charlotte to start the Inspiration Network and “The PTL Club.”

Four years later, the Heritage USA theme park opened at the network’s headquarters across the state line in Fort Mill, South Carolina. The Heritage USA Grand Hotel was added in 1984, with a water park joining the complex in 1986. That year, more than 6 million people visited the park, making it the nation’s third most popular attraction after Walt Disney World and Disneyland.

At its peak, PTL was bringing in more than $128 million annually and was carried on 1,300 cable systems with 12 million subscribers.

“As I look back, you know, I had a tiger by the tail,” Bakker told CNN’s Larry King in 2000. “The budgets kept getting bigger and bigger, and it got to the point where it was either, you know, raise the money or go broke. And so, you kept raising the money.”

The swift fall of an empire

Jim and Tammy Faye brought a casual and conversational style to their show, similar to daytime talk shows today – but with a Christian focus.

“Welcome back to our home,” Jim Bakker said at the start of one 1981 episode, which opened with the couple sitting in a group with a view of Lake Wylie behind them. “It’s nice to see you. It’s nice to see you, Tammy Faye.”

“It’s nice to see you, Jim,” said Tammy Faye.

But off camera, a scandal was growing, and on March 19, 1987, Jim Bakker resigned from PTL after paying a secretary, Jessica Hahn, to keep quiet about his affair with her. Hahn received a one-time $115,000 payment and monthly interest payments from a $150,000 trust fund.

The following month, PTL filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Also in 1987, Tammy Faye Bakker, whose heavy mascara became her trademark, was treated at the Betty Ford Center for prescription drug addiction.

In December 1988, Jim Bakker was indicted for fraud and conspiring to defraud churchgoers of $158 million. Tammy Faye Bakker was not named in the indictment.

In 1989, Heritage USA and the Grand Hotel closed, and Jim Bakker was convicted of 24 counts of fraud and conspiracy and sentenced to 45 years in prison.

Bakker told CNN in an interview that his affair with Hahn was a mistake.

“God’s forgiveness is the only thing. And, you know, I take full responsibility for the adultery. It was my fault,” Bakker said. “And, you know, no matter what went on, the man has to take responsibility, and I do.”

After more than 30 years of marriage, Tammy Faye Bakker divorced Jim while he was in prison, marrying Christian construction magnate and former PTL contractor Roe Messner in 1993. She died at 65 of inoperable cancer that had spread to her lungs.

They later became the subject of both the big screen and documentary lens.

Jessica Chastain and Andrew Garfield portrayed the couple in “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” in 2021 –- beginning in 1960 and following them into the ‘90s – adopted from a 2000 documentary of the same name.

Returning to television

Jim Bakker was paroled in December 1994. Four years later, Bakker met Lori Graham while working in the inner-city ministry of the Dream Center of Los Angeles, according to his official bio. They married that same year.

“I’m put back together by my faith in Jesus Christ,” Bakker told CNN in the 2000 interview. “He forgives everyone. And if I don’t receive his forgiveness, how can I teach anyone else that God will forgive them?”

He returned to TV in the 2000s with “The Jim Bakker Show,” this time filmed from Branson, Missouri, with Lori as cohost.

Bakker faced controversy again in early 2020.

On a February 2020 episode of his show, Bakker and a guest discussed a product, “Silver Solution,” that they claimed could eliminate the coronavirus from the body within hours -– well before vaccines or any approved treatments.

The Missouri attorney general sued Bakker and his production company for misrepresenting “Silver Solution” as a coronavirus cure.

“Anyone who has bought ‘Silver Solution’ from ‘The Jim Bakker Show’ should know that it cannot cure or treat coronavirus,” the Missouri Attorney General’s office announced in a statement.

In May 2020, Lori Bakker announced that her husband had had a stroke and would take a sabbatical from their TV show.

Working nonstop had taken a “huge toll” on her husband’s health, she said.

A return to North Carolina

Two years earlier, in 2018, Bakker had returned to North Carolina for the funeral of the Rev. Billy Graham, the evangelist of an earlier generation who grew up in Charlotte.

“Billy Graham came into my prison when I was there,” Bakker told CNN affiliate WBTV. “He wrapped his arms around me when I was a mess, I was cleaning toilets at that moment, and I was at a very low moment in my life. Billy Graham walked in and threw his arms around me and said ‘Jim, I love you.’

“The whole Graham family loved me, and I had to come and say goodbye, but he’s in Heaven,” Bakker said. “We’re gonna walk with him someday.”

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CNN’s Scottie Andrew contributed to this report.