BRANSON, Mo. (AP) — Jim Bakker, who along with his first wife Tammy Faye built an evangelical empire around the hugely successful “The PTL Club” TV show, only to lose it all over 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 clear.
The pair 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 was honored to walk beside through so many seasons of life and ministry,” Lori Bakker said in a statement.
But it was another evangelical program that made Jim and and his first wife Tammy Faye Bakker cultural icons — so much so that they were often skewered in the 1980s and 1990s by late-night comedians and parodied on “Saturday Night Live.” A theatrical movie on their lives, “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” was released in September 2021.
At its peak in the mid-1980s, the Bakkers’ ministry included not only the TV show drawing up to 13 million nightly viewers but also the Christian-based 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 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 launched a children’s show on Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network. By 1966, he was hosting “The 700 Club,” a Christian talk show.
Bakker left CBN in 1972 and two years later formed the PTL Satellite Network. “The PTL Club” — PTL stands for “Praise the Lord” — became its signature show.
It hit its heyday in the 1980s, “The PTL Club” was drawing millions of viewers — and bringing in millions of dollars annually from followers.
Sort of a Christian version of “The Tonight Show,” it featured chats with guests and Christian entertainers. Bakker offered upbeat sermons and Tammy Faye — charismatic and always wearing her trademark heavy mascara — sang. Most episodes were taped at their sprawling complex just south of Charlotte, North Carolina.
The couple was so famous that they were often parodied by TV comedians for their lavish lifestyle and Tammy Faye’s abundant makeup.
