Skip to content 
Branson, Mo. – Jim Bakker, who with his first wife Tammy Faye built an evangelical empire around the hit TV show “The PTL Club”, only to lose it due to a sex scandal and financial crimes, has died. He was 86.
Bakker died Monday, his second wife, Lori Bakker, said in a statement. The cause of his death was not immediately clear.
The couple 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.
“He was a pioneer of Christian television, but to me, he was my husband, my best friend, and the man I had the honor of walking through so many seasons of life and ministry,” Lori Bakker said in a statement. “Jim loved people very much. He loved this ministry, and he loved the friends and partners who stood with him throughout the years. Even in his last days, his heart was still for God’s work and for the Gospel to reach the world.”
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 satirized in the 1980s and 1990s by late-night comedians and parodied on “Saturday Night Live.” A theatrical film about their lives, “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” was released in September 2021.
Will & Deni McIntyre / Getty Images
At its peak in the mid-1980s, Bakkers’ ministry included not only the TV show, which drew as many as 13 million viewers nightly, but also a theme park and hotel Christian USA based 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 and dropped out of college to start their own traveling 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 they launched a children’s show on the Robertson Christian Broadcasting Network. In 1966, he hosted “The 700 Club,” a Christian talk show.
Bakker left CBN in 1972 and two years later founded the PTL Satellite Network. “The PTL Club” – PTL stands for “Praise the Lord” – became his signature show.
During its heyday in the 1980s, “The PTL Club” was drawing millions of viewers – and bringing in millions of dollars a year from fans.
A sort of Christian version of “The Tonight Show,” there were conversations with Christian guests and entertainers. Bakker gave rousing sermons and Tammy Faye – charismatic and always wearing her trademark heavy mascara – sang. Most of the episodes were recorded at their sprawling facility just south of Charlotte, North Carolina.
The couple were so famous that they were often prepared by TV comedians for their interesting lifestyle and the material Tammy Faye had enough.
Jim Bakker is caught up in scandals
In March 1987, their empire began to crumble when Bakker admitted that he had sex 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 was stuck with Bakker, often with tears running down her mascara, even as many saw his demise 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 following an investigation into PTL’s finances. He was convicted and sentenced to 45 years in federal prison, although the sentence was later reduced to eight years.
At a press conference after Bakker was found guilty, Tammy Faye stood before the microphones and sang the hymn, “On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand.”
Their marriage ended and Tammy Faye Bakker divorced in 1992, just short of their 31st anniversary, while he was still in prison. She later married Roe Messner, a construction contractor whose projects included the Heritage USA theme park. Messner was convicted of securities fraud in 1995 and spent about two years in prison.
Tammy Faye died of colon cancer in 2007.
Bakker was released on parole in 1994. 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 law prosecuting him of falsely claiming the health product Silver Solution could cure COVID-19. The settlement called for $156,000 in restitution to people who paid money or made donations to get the product in the early days of the pandemic.
The lawsuit said Bakker and a guest performed the treatment in 11 incidents in February and March 2020.
Bakker and Tammy Faye had two children. He and his second wife adopted five children in 2002.
