Jim Bakker, whose globe-spanning PTL ministry fell to scandal and fraud, dies at 86
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Oct. 6, 2026, 12:15 AM EDT / Updated Oct. 6, 2026, 1:11 AM EDTBy Alex Johnson
Jim Bakker, the charismatic evangelical preacher who built a Christian television empire, only to see it collapse in scandal, recrimination and prison, died Monday, his wife said. 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," his second wife, Lori Bakker, said on the Facebook page of Bakker's most recent TV show, "The Jim Bakker Show." She did not disclose a cause of death.
Bakker's son, Jay Bakker, who became a prominent evangelist in his own right with a much more liberal view of Christianity than his father's, confirmed the death in his own Facebook post.
"We had a very complicated relationship and he was also my father and a grandfather and I need to mourn in my own time," he wrote.
Bakker was born in Muskegon, Michigan, and his flamboyant first wife, Tammy Faye, was born in International Falls, Minnesota, but they embraced the South when they started a puppet show on a Virginia TV station in the 1970s. It soon turned into a high-energy, Southern-flavored talk show called "The PTL Club" on cable, attracting some of the biggest celebrities of the 1980s to tell their stories of having been "born again."
Bakker launched the first Christian satellite network to beam his upbeat message — "God loves you. He really does" — into homes across the country and around the world.
Along the way, the Bakkers became known in the secular world for their easy tears, Jim Bakker's welcoming but often strict message and Tammy Bakker's neon personality — and makeup.
Their ministry grew rapidly, and operating out of its new base in Fort Mill, South Carolina, along the North Carolina line, they built a multimillion-dollar empire complete with one of the world's largest theme parks, Heritage USA, on the small donations of hundreds of thousands of believers, some of whom pledged their life savings to them.
But PTL — short, variously, for Praise the Lord or People That Love — collapsed in 1987, when The Charlotte Observer reported that PTL had paid more than $250,000 to Jessica Hahn, a church secretary with whom he had a one-time tryst years earlier. Bakker confirmed the encounter to the Observer but said he had been "wickedly manipulated by treacherous former friends and then colleagues who victimized me with the aid of a female confederate."
Further reporting disclosed lavish spending on the Bakkers' behalf, including an air-conditioned doghouse at their lakefront home and gold-plated bathroom fixtures. The Bakkers resigned from PTL, and in 1989, Bakker was convicted of fraud and conspiracy and sentenced to 45 years in prison; he served just less than five years before he was paroled.
Tammy Bakker resolutely stood by him for several years, but in 1992 she filed for divorce. She married the man whose contracting service built much of Heritage USA — and who provided most of the money to pay Hahn — and slowly rebuilt her life as a Christian TV personality who knowingly winked at her own image for secular audiences. She died of cancer in 2007.
Jim Bakker returned to ministry after his prison term and in 2003 launched "The Jim Bakker Show" with Lori Bakker, whom he had married in 1998.
Bakker's message was far different this time — apocalyptic and dismissive of the prosperity theology that brought him to fame. The show focused on a survivalist message, and Bakker built a new business based on promoting unregulated supplements. In 2021, he and his church settled a lawsuit from the state of Missouri that accused him of falsely claiming a health supplement called Silver Solution could cure Covid.
"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 Monday night in announcing his death.
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He grifted right up to the end, selling emergency rations to doomsday preppers.
I saw some of those ads. shameful
tsk, tsk, tsk, $50 worth of instant mac and cheese in a 5 gallon bucket couldn't save him ...
Never, ever take responsibility for your own lusts if you can blame it on someone else
When they lay out his corpse for services they should put Tammy Faye level makeup on him.
I remember watching tammy bawling her eyes out whenever I did any channel surfing. wasn't there some joke about her crying at a certain time every day?
I have no sympathy for people like this slime bucket who exploit human weaknesses (in this case, wishful thinking based on religious beliefs) for personal gain.
Bakker was not a religious leader trying to do good for humanity; he was a con man.
Reminds me of someone else whom I will not mention.
no need to ...
And when 1 leaves, there are 2 more to take his place.
Of course. Because there are always enough people falling for their bullshit to make it profitable. It's easier now to con people than it was back in Jim Bakker's heyday. Back then, it cost a lot to broadcast his "message". Now, anybody with an internet connection and a smart phone can spread the word.
Morning..could never work out why people got sucked in with these mobs..
All the hallelujahs and happy clapping was enough to drive you nuts..
But as they say beat a drum and someone will follow you..
Remember, England sent its criminals to Australia (but mostly those smart enough to avoid the gallows) and its religious fanatics to the US (well, the American colonies, I suppose). And now we see how that turned out.
And we much prefer our convicts..
Actually you mob got 50,000 convicts first then after the War of Independence the Brits had no where else to send them..
Then someone thought..ahh that Great Southern Land..and the rest is history as they say..
Yes, but they were followed by MacPresbyterians who took the fun out of everything.
Maybe West Virginia should send some of its snake handlers to Australia. That would bring back the fun.
It's like the old faith healers. If (when) it fails to help, it is not because the faith healer is a charlatan, it's because the patient didn't have enough faith.
I thought he died YEARS ago, like a decade ago at least.
he probably thinks hell isn't so bad, since he's going to be spit-roasted by the entire christo-fascist sector of resident republicans ...
He’s probably always been a pathologically lying atheist. Just a cunning, evil person, latching on to humanity’s Achilles heel - who happens to be an atheist. There’s bad apples on both sides.
ain't no wacko like a religious wacko ...
the financial fraud cloaked by religion business is filled with atheists. 45 years ago a former partner in crime came into some money and asked me what business could he get into and make money on day one. I sarcastically suggested he buy a catholic church franchise.
we lost touch over the years, but I found his number when I moved in 2020 and called. I spoke to his wife and she told me he was on FB, I told her I had looked, but the name I had was for some religious wacko. she laughed and told me that was him. long story short, he's now an internet preacher with a time slot on a streaming platform and an internet xtian rock DJ with a radio show, along with ministering to his small town flock. from my perspective, with regards to our past association, it looks like I matured and he continued with a life of crime. in his case, it looks like the thumper biz pays pretty well ...