Jim Bakker, who built an evangelical empire with his first wife, Tammy Faye, around the hugely successful “The PTL Club” television program before losing it amid a sex scandal and financial crimes, has died. He was 86.
Bakker died Monday, his second wife, Lori Bakker, said in a statement. His cause of death was not immediately known.
The couple lived near Branson, Missouri, and filmed “The Jim Bakker Show” there after its launch in 2003. Bakker suffered a stroke in 2020.
“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,” Lori Bakker said.
It was “The PTL Club,” however, that turned Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker into cultural icons. Their fame also made them frequent targets of late-night comedians in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as “Saturday Night Live” parodies. Their story was later dramatized in the September 2021 film “The Eyes of Tammy Faye.”
At the ministry’s height in the mid-1980s, the Bakkers’ operation included a television show that attracted as many as 13 million viewers each night, along with the Christian-themed Heritage USA theme park and hotel in Fort Mill, South Carolina.
Bakker was born in Muskegon, Michigan, and attended North Central Bible College in Minneapolis, where he met Tammy Faye. They married in 1961, left college and began a traveling ministry of their own. He preached while she sang and played the accordion at churches and tent revivals across the country.
The couple soon attracted the attention of televangelist Pat Robertson. In 1965, they launched a children’s program on Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network. By the following year, Bakker was hosting “The 700 Club,” the network’s Christian talk show.
Bakker left CBN in 1972 and founded the PTL Satellite Network two years later. Its flagship program, “The PTL Club,” took its name from the phrase “Praise the Lord.”
The program reached its peak during the 1980s, drawing millions of viewers and generating millions of dollars each year from followers.
Styled as a Christian counterpart to “The Tonight Show,” “The PTL Club” featured celebrity guests, Christian entertainers and Bakker’s upbeat sermons. Tammy Faye, known for her charismatic personality and trademark heavy mascara, performed songs. Most episodes were recorded at the couple’s sprawling complex just south of Charlotte, North Carolina.
Their celebrity status made the Bakkers popular subjects for television comedians, who mocked their lavish lifestyle and Tammy Faye’s dramatic makeup.
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The empire began to unravel in March 1987, when Bakker acknowledged a sexual encounter with church clerk Jessica Hahn. He was forced to resign from the ministry he had built, handing control to pastor and broadcaster Jerry Falwell.
Tammy Faye remained by Bakker’s side, often appearing with tears streaking her mascara. To many observers, his collapse became a symbol of the perceived greed and hypocrisy of the 1980s.
The scandal was followed by an even more serious legal crisis.
In 1988, Bakker was indicted on charges of mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy after an investigation into PTL’s finances. He was convicted and initially sentenced to 45 years in federal prison, though that sentence was later reduced to eight years.
The marriage fell apart while Bakker was incarcerated. Tammy Faye divorced him in 1992, shortly before their 31st anniversary. 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 served about two years in prison.
Tammy Faye died of colon cancer in 2007.
Bakker was released on parole in 1994 and married Lori in 1998. Five years later, the couple launched “The Jim Bakker Show” on the PTL Satellite Network.
In June 2021, Bakker and his company, Morningside Church Productions Inc., settled a lawsuit alleging that he had falsely claimed the health supplement Silver Solution could cure COVID-19. Under the settlement, $156,000 was to be refunded to people who paid for or contributed money to obtain the product during 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.
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