Jim Bakker death: Man who built ‘PTL Club’ televangelism empire dies at 86

US televangelist Jim Bakker, who built a multi-million-dollar evangelical empire with his first wife Tammy Faye and pursued an opulent lifestyle before losing it all over a sex scandal, a fraud conviction for bilking followers and the divorce from television co-host Tammy Faye, died on Monday at age 86.

Bakker died Monday, his second wife, Lori Bakker, said in a statement accessed by AP.

However, the cause of Jim Bakker's death was not immediately clear.


The couple lived near the Missouri entertainment town of Branson and filmed their TV show “The Jim Bakker Show” at the same location since it launched in 2003.

Bakker had 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.

What made Jim Bakker and his first wife Tammy Faye Bakker famous?

It was another evangelical program that made Jim and and his first wife Tammy Faye Bakker cultural icons.

The couple was oftennskewered in the 1980s and 1990s by late-night comedians and parodied on “Saturday Night Live.”

“The Eyes of Tammy Faye," a theatrical movie on their lives, was released in September 2021.

During the peak of their career in the 1980s, the Bakkers’ ministry headlined the TV show drawing up to 13 million nightly viewers and also included the Christian-based Heritage USA theme park and hotel in Fort Mill, South Carolina.

Jim Bakker was born in Muskegon Michigan, and attended North Central Bible College in Minneapolis, where he met Tammy Faye, according to an AP report, The duo got married in 1961 and dropped out of college to start their own traveling ministry where he preached, she sang and played the accordion as they crossed the country visiting churches and tent revivals.

The couple 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 a Christian talk show, “The 700 Club”.

(With inputs from AP)