Jim Bakker, the charismatic evangelical preacher who built a massive Christian television empire before seeing it collapse in fraud convictions, prison time, and financial ruin, died Monday at the age of 86, according to his wife, Lori Bakker. Her announcement on Facebook did not disclose a cause of death.
From Regional Puppet Shows to a Global Media Empire
Born in Muskegon, Michigan, Bakker and his flamboyant first wife, Tammy Faye—born in International Falls, Minnesota—began their journey into religious broadcasting in the 1970s with a puppet show on a Virginia television station. Televangelist Pat Robertson brought the show to his fledgling station in Portsmouth, Virginia, where the Bakkers hosted the 700 Club from 1966 to 1973. After parting ways with Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network, the couple moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1974 to launch the Inspiration Network and the high-energy, Southern-flavored talk show The PTL Club (short for Praise the Lord or People That Love).
Bakker launched the world’s first Christian satellite network, beaming his upbeat message—“God loves you. He really does”—into homes globally. At its peak, PTL brought in more than $128 million annually, carried on 1,300 cable systems with 12 million subscribers. Operating from Fort Mill, South Carolina, across the state line from Charlotte, the ministry built Heritage USA. By 1986, the multimillion-dollar complex and theme park drew over 6 million visitors, making it the nation’s third most popular attraction behind Walt Disney World and Disneyland.
The 1987 Scandal and Fall of the PTL Ministry
The empire unraveled swiftly in 1987 when The Charlotte Observer reported that PTL had paid more than $250,000 to Jessica Hahn, a church secretary who stated she had a one-time tryst with Bakker years earlier. Bakker confirmed the encounter to the newspaper, stating he had been “wickedly manipulated by treacherous former friends and then colleagues who victimized me with the aid of a female confederate.”
Further reporting exposed lavish spending of ministry funds, including gold-plated bathroom fixtures and an air-conditioned doghouse at the Bakkers’ lakefront home. The couple resigned from PTL. In 1989, Bakker was convicted of fraud and conspiracy and sentenced to 45 years in federal prison, serving just under five years before receiving a parole release.
Reflecting on the collapse years later, Bakker told CNN’s Larry King in 2000, “As I look back, you know, I had a tiger by the tail. 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.” He added, “I wanted people to believe in my dream, and my dream became more important than the people. When the dream of Christian community becomes more important than the community, that’s when it’s a sin.”
Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker Rebuild Their Lives
Tammy Faye stood by her husband initially, but filed for divorce in 1992. She later married the contractor who built much of Heritage USA and funded the settlement payment to Hahn, eventually rebuilding her life as a Christian TV personality before dying of cancer in 2007.
Following his release from prison, Bakker returned to ministry. In 1998, he married Lori Bakker, and in 2003 the couple launched The Jim Bakker Show. Abandoning the prosperity theology that defined his early career, Bakker pivoted to an apocalyptic message centered on survivalism and the promotion of unregulated health products. In 2021, he and his church settled a lawsuit brought by the state of Missouri accusing him of falsely marketing a supplement called Silver Solution as a cure for Covid-19.
His son, Jay Bakker—who became a prominent evangelist advocating a more liberal view of Christianity—addressed his father’s death on Facebook, writing, “We had a very complicated relationship and he was also my father and a grandfather and I need to mourn in my own time.”
Lori Bakker marked her husband’s passing by stating, “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.”
