In the 1980s, an evangelical couple named Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker were literally everywhere, preaching the gospel through their own broadcasting network, living a lavish lifestyle, and building a grandiose Christian-theme park and accompanying on-site hotel in Ft. Mill, South Carolina. It didn’t matter what faith was, there was no way you didn’t know who Jim and Tammy Faye were. Today, we’ll take a look at how they Faye met and were led into the ministry, growing their following to an impressive number of people, until the empire they created literally came crashing down.
Jim Bakker’s rise to Christian notoriety began by accident– a car accident, that is. Jim was driving in the snow as a teenager when he ran over a small child who had slid under his car. The boy survived, but Jim was so shaken up by this incident that he decided to give his life to Christianity. It was shortly after this that he went on to attend an Assemblies of God Bible College in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His first year was full of devotion–to both God and his studies while juggling a part time job.
It was during his second year at the college, in 1960, that Jim met a young woman named Tammy Faye LaValley, the daughter of Pentecostal preachers. He was immediately smitten, declaring that he wanted to marry her after their second date. Tammy had fallen for him as well, and they were married before the end of the school year. Jim continued his job as a busboy and Tammy worked at the local Woolworth’s store. They were living on the $80 a week they brought in.
Under the Revival Tent
Shortly after leaving the college, Jim was invited to preach at an Assembly of God church in North Carolina for a “revival meeting.” Jim was discouraged after his first “Altar call” got no response, but the church’s pastor encouraged him to keep at it. Tammy joined in by singing and playing the accordion. Before the meetings were over, people were responding. The pastor told other pastors about Jim, and shortly thereafter, Jim and Tammy were preaching throughout the Carolinas and Virginia. Eventually, they were preaching in the denomination’s biggest churches.
One of Jim’s best qualities was his charisma. He possessed a cheerful and positive personality that drew people in. It was this charisma that allowed him to rise as high as he did in the Christian church. He was also innovative, and was constantly thinking of ways to reach a bigger audience. He and Tammy even started a puppet ministry for children.
Jim and Tammy’s first foray into television happened when evangelical pastor Pat Robertson reached out to them to ask them to create a children’s show with their puppets. It was hard work, but the couple felt it was a calling from God of sorts. The show ran on the Christian Broadcasting Network, which Robertson had founded.
This wasn’t the television show that launched Jim to Christian fame, however. He had an idea for a Christian version of “The Tonight Show,” and he asked Robertson if he could develop his idea. A Christian talk show was unheard of at the time, and Robertson was worried it would flop. He agreed to give Jim a shot at hosting since the station didn’t air anything at night. This was how The 700 Club began. The name came from the amount of donations they’d need ($100 from 700 people each month) to fund the show’s expenses. The show became a hit, and they had some of the biggest names in the Christian world appearing on the show.
Shortly after the show began its rise to popularity, the ministry hit some financial problems. Robertson had kept the financial situation hidden for as long as he could. When Jim found out, he decided to try something. He tried to appeal to the show’s viewers, revealing that they were close to having to shut down and begged for donations with tears in his eyes. And the people responded.
As the network continued to rise in popularity, Robertson began to want more involvement. He wanted to host shows, and air more secular shows to draw in a bigger audience. Jim resigning from the network due to their creative differences.
Along the way, Jim and Tammy had two children that were born in the 1970s, daughter Tammy Sue and son Jamie “Jay” Charles. Jim and Tammy were living in Los Angeles when they met a Christian couple named Paul and Jan Crouch. Since Jim knew the creative part of TV and Paul knew the business end, they decided to start a new Christian television station. Jim began his new PTL (Praise the Lord) show and it wasn’t long until the Trinity Broadcasting Network had built a large audience. Tammy acted as the co-host and featured singer of this show.
Conflict arose again when Paul and Jan wanted more involvement and control. Since the Crouches were more business-savvy, Jim and Tammy found themselves ousted from the network. Several staff members felt that this was unfair and resigned alongside them.
Shortly after their departure from TBN, a station in Charlotte reached out to them to ask them to host a telethon. After this, people from the area wanted the Bakkers to start a ministry in Charlotte. And so, they and the staff that had resigned from TBN moved to the area to start another network. This time, Jim wouldn’t be working under someone. He would be the one in charge. He said, “I’m going to do things differently this time. Nobody will ever take a television ministry away from me again.”
The Origins of PTL (Praise the Lord)
Jim used his jubilant personality to start another Christian talk show, and people loved it. He called his new program the PTL Club and he quickly rose above both Robertson and the Crouches. PTL stood for Praise the Lord or People that Love. An article that ran on the website Vox said that some people jokingly said PTL stood for “pass the loot.” He may not have been as business savvy as his predecessors, but he had his charisma. People loved and trusted Jim and they looked forward to spending Sunday mornings with the couple on “The Jim and Tammy Show.” Eventually, PTL was broadcasting 24/7.
The show helped to popularlize a concept known as the Prosperity Gospel, which associated faith with financial success. Jim and Tammy were the shining example of this with their own success. At the peak of their success, the two were lavish spenders. They built a lakefront home in Tega Cay, South Carolina. Features included a large flagstone fireplace, a dining room that could seat up to 40 people, a music room that doubled as a television studio, three kitchens, a pool, and 22-foot-long hallway lined entirely with closets. The master bathroom had gold faucets in the shape of swans and seven different closets to hold all of Tammy’s clothes. The Bakkers had renovated the house four times during their time there, expanding it to more than five levels and 10,000 square feet.
The couple and their flamboyant lifestyle attracted more than its fair share of criticism. Jim and Tammy’s former bodyguard, Michael Richardson, highlighted in his book “The Edge of Disaster” that the couple was making over a million dollars per year, and spending it freely. Tammy made no secret of the fact that she loved to shop and developed a signature make-up look of sparkling eye shadow, thick eyelashes, and shiny foundation. She once said shopping was cheaper than therapy, and she hoped Heaven would include a shopping center with no charge limit on her credit card. Despite their comfortable lifestyle they built through their ministry, Jim and Tammy developed a grandiose plan to grow their empire even further.
Heritage USA
With the money earned from their satellite network, Jim and Tammy were able to purchase 2,300 acres of land for a new project: Heritage USA. Heritage USA was designed as a Christian theme park. It was intended to be a “Christian Disneyland” of sorts located just over the border from North Carolina in Fort Mill, South Carolina. Attractions included Billy Graham’s boyhood home (which was moved there from Charlotte), a Jerusalem-style marketplace, a 12-acre waterpark, and a Passion Play portraying the life and death of Jesus Christ.
The park was massive, and at one point Heritage USA claimed it was the third most visited theme park in America, hosting approximately 4.9 million visitors a year. But the Bakkers didn’t stop there. Jim said he heard from visitors that they wanted to stay at the park after their visit, so he began fundraising to build a hotel, with a large cafeteria and covered shopping center, called the PTL Partner Center, on the site for convenience.
An issue arose in how they financed the resort, however. Jim claimed on his televised services that anyone who donated $1,000 to their organization would be rewarded with an annual three-night stay in the Heritage Grand Hotel and Conference Center. Because Jim was such an excellent salesperson, he ended up selling over 66,000 of these, well, frankly, time-shares. Unfortunately, this was more than the capacity of the hotel which only had around 500 rooms available for guests.
Emotional Strain on the Family
While Jim focused on growing the ministry, his relationship with Tammy struggled. Towards the beginning of their marriage, Tammy saw a side of Jim’s that wasn’t all that visible in their public life. Despite his extroverted and charming personality, Jim would become quiet and withdrawn from everything. Jim also had a nervous breakdown during his time at the Christian Broadcasting Network. He said in his book “Move that Mountain” that “I could hardly lift my weary body out of the bed. My nerves were jangled and I felt as though I was losing all the restraints that held my life together. I couldn’t even bear to talk with anyone. I wanted only to be away from people… It seemed as if whatever little control I had over myself might snap any minute…”
Tammy later wrote in her memoir that they were barely intimate during the height of PTL, and she felt lonely and isolated at home taking care of their children.
An Extramarital Encounter
In 1980, Jim Bakker has a sexual encounter outside of his marriage that would come back to haunt him years later. The details of this tryst vary depending on whose account you’re reading. According to Jessica Hahn, a 21-year-old church secretary from Long Island, New York, in December of 1984 she received a call from Oklahoma City televangelist John Wesley Fletcher. He invited her to a telethon in Florida where Jim Bakker would be appearing and explained she could meet Jim and babysit his children during the event. Once she arrived in Florida, she was not taken to the telethon but instead to a hotel room in Clearwater Beach. She now admits she had a consensual sexual encounter with Jim, explaining that it felt like she was in the room with God, and she couldn’t say no to God. She returned home and didn’t tell anyone what had happened at the time.
John Wesley Fletcher, the televangelist who had set up the meeting between Hahn and Jim, said Jim had asked for his assistance because he wanted to make Tammy jealous.
In early 1987, The Charlotte Observer had received information that a woman in New York, along with her representatives, received $115,000 in 1985 after she told PTL about her tryst with Jim in the Florida hotel. Realizing the firestorm that lay ahead of him, Jim announced in March of 1987 that he was resigning from PTL, “for the good of my family, the church, and of all our related ministries.” He said he had been manipulated by “treacherous former friends who conspired to betray me into a sexual encounter.” He did not identify those friends by their names. He said he had chosen to participate in the blackmail scheme to protect the ministry and his family. He also announced that he and Tammy were so overwhelmed they were undergoing full-time therapy at a treatment center in California.
This is when the couple revealed Tammy had also been battling her own personal demons for years. Tammy said she had first become addicted to pills when her doctors gave her allergy medication after the birth of her daughter, and then because the pills kept her so hyper, they prescribed her tranquilizers to control anxiety and nervousness.
Jerry Falwell Steps In
Jerry Falwell, the well-known televangelist from Lynchburg, Virginia, replaced Jim as chairman of the PTL board, and he immediately announced a new board of directors. He said he agreed to take the PTL post because he feared the fallout from the scandal would taint every gospel ministry in America, if not the world. He assured that the new PTL leadership would have an open-door policy towards the news media. Jim thought this would only be a temporary solution to his problems, but Falwell had no plans to turn the reigns back over to Jim, ever.
PTL Executive Director Richard Dortch announced he would succeed Jim Bakker as president of PTL, along with taking over hosting duties on the “Jim and Tammy” weekday talk show. That did not sit well with Falwell when he learned Dortch had been involved in the Jessica Hahn payoff and he ousted Dortch from the organization in April of 1987.
By the time Jerry Falwell joined the board of directors, PTL had more than $60 million in debts from the construction of Heritage USA. PTL began laying off employees early that summer, and Falwell launched an emergency fundraising campaign to raise $7 million by May 31 and $25 more million by the end of August. PTL asked for bankruptcy protection to allow it to reorganize its finances. Falwell announced he was seeking 1,000 contributions of $1,000 by Labor Day to help with the fundraising. He pledged to go down the theme park’s 52-foot water slide if the goal was met, which it was. But at the same time, Falwell cancelled one of his shows that ran on 50 different television stations because of decreased contributions.
He feared he was losing support in his own church because of his involvement with PTL. Ministry officials filed a 60-day reorganization plan to create profit and nonprofit corporations and replace the lifetime partners’ free lodging promises with 50 percent discounts or stock. A U.S. bankruptcy judge said PTL officials didn’t listen to creditors and contributors in developing their plan, and ruled that creditors could file their own plans to recoup their money.
The Heritage Grand Hotel officially closed its door in late September, 1989, had only been running at an 8-10 percent occupancy rate. When Hurricane Hugo hit, that helped the PTL bankruptcy trustee speed up his decision to shutter the hotel and water park.
Falwell and several other board members, including the CEO, COO, and three top vice presidents, announced in October of 1987 that they were resigning from their positions.
Jessica Hahn Seeks Damages
The Charlotte Observer later reported that Hahn had complained to PTL about her encounter with Jim in 1984 and met with Richard Dortch twice in New York. During their second meeting, he asked her to sign a document recanting her allegations, which she said she felt pressured to sign. She later connected with a California businessman named Paul Roper, who ran a large church in Anaheim and a Seattle bank. He knew Hahn’s pastor in New York and offered to represent her. He then sent PTL a draft of a lawsuit seeking millions of dollars in damages from PTL and Jim Bakker, regarding an alleged sexual assault. Richard Dortch then arranged a payment that went through various different channels. He asked Roe Messner, the building contractor for PTL, to send $265,000 to Hahn’s representative in Los Angeles. Messner then wrote the $265,000 off as an expenditure for an ampitheater that was being built on the Heritage USA grounds. Ironically, the ampitheater became the site of the ministry’s “Passion Play.”
Howard Weitzman, the head of a firm in LA, gave $115,000 check to Paul Roper and set up a $150,000 interest-bearing trust account for Hahn. Roper gave Hahn about $20,000 and took the rest as his fee and other expenses. Hahn got that $20,000 and monthly-interest payments until they stopped in March of 1987.
When Falwell learned of the transaction, he said that such a payment should have been indicated in the PTL’s board minutes, and they should have been allowed to weigh in on the decision to make the payment.
A few years ago, in an interview she did with The Charlotte Observer in 2017, Hahn said she did not make any of the money people think she did from the blackmail scheme that was later exposed in 1987.
When the initial transaction was revealed back in 1987, Jim said, “I sorrowfully acknowledge that seven years ago in an isolated incident, I was wickedly manipulated by treacherous former friends and then-colleagues who victimized me with the aid of a female confederate. They conspired to betray me into a sexual encounter at a time of great stress in my marital life. Vulnerable as I was at the time, I was set up as part of a scheme to co-opt me and obtain some advantage for themselves in connection with their hope for position in the ministry.”
In response to that statement, Hahn told The Charlotte Observer:
“His first statement was ‘I was set up by a female confederate.’ No you weren’t. You asked me to show up in Florida, and pretending to take care of your kids. And you came into a hotel room and you had sex with me. No you weren’t set up by a female confederate. You begged another preacher to get you a woman. And I was that woman. I want to say, Cut the crap! You set me up. I was like, 21 years old. I was really raised in the church. I didn’t even know what confederate meant. I didn’t even know anything. See how I get angry?”
At the same the public was learning about the surreptitious payment to Jessica Hahn through her various representatives, the government had also been quietly investigating PTL and several of its leaders, including Jim for about 16 months. At the time, Jim had already resigned from PTL and was preaching at a business called Skate Palace on South Boulevard in Charlotte and Richard Dortch had moved on to Florida, where he was operating a ministry for troubled executives. They were both charged with eight counts of mail fraud, 15 counts of wire fraud, and 1 count of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud. Two former aides, brothers David and James Taggart, were charged with five counts of tax fraud and one count of conspiracy to impede the IRS in collecting taxes. Jim and Dortch were accused of diverting more than $4 million dollars in PTL money to their own benefit. David Taggart, who was Jim’s former aide, and his brother James, who was the PTL’s former interior decorator, were accused of evading about $500,000 in income taxes and diverting about $1.1 million dollars of PTL money to pay personal expenses.
Indictments Handed Down
The indictment for Jim and Dortch said that through the use of telephones, mail, and television, the two men had raised at least $158 million in 11 different “lifetime partnership” programs from1984 to 1987. In return, PTL promised contributors free lodging each year for the rest of their lives at the unfinished Towners hotel or other Heritage USA lodging in return for a one-time gift, usually $1,000. Of the $74 million raise for the 21-story Towers Hotel, less than 20 cents of each dollar was spent on its construction, and the building was never completed.
As for the Taggart brothers, it appeared they had been dipping into the PTL coffers to cover their own living expenses, even when they were unrelated to the business. The indictments showed that seven different times in 1985 and 11 times in 1986, David or James Taggart used cash advances totaling $265,000 from PTL Visa and MasterCards to pay money owed on their joint personal American Express account. After Jim resigned from PTL in March 1987, David Taggart used PTL checks totaling $75,000 to make payments on the Taggarts’ personal American Express card. The last check was written 12 days after the brothers were fired from the company. They were also accused of evading income taxes and filing fraudulent income tax returns from 1983-1987.
Jim’s wife, Tammy, was not indicted on any charges.
In August 1989, Richard Dortch was sentenced to eight years in federal prison and fined $200,000 for defrauding members of the PTL. He also agreed to testify against Jim in his trial, which began just a few weeks later.
David and James Taggart were convicted of tax fraud and agreed to testify against Jim as well. U.S. District Judge Robert Potter gave David Taggart 18 years and five months in federal prison in Alabama, and James Taggart received 17 years and nine months. They were also fined $500,000 each and ordered to pay at least $525,000 in back income taxes.
In early October of 1989, Jim Bakker was found guilty of eight counts of mail fraud, three counts of wire fraud by telephone, 12 counts of wire fraud by television airwaves, and one count of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud. He was released on $250,000 bond while he awaited sentencing. Tammy, who had faithfully stood by Jim throughout the entire ordeal of the Jessica Hahn scandal and trial, stood on the front steps in front of the federal courthouse in Charlotte and sang the first verse of “On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand” as the reporters shouted out questions to her. “It’s not over ‘til it’s over,” she told them. She also told them the ministry she and her husband had built would continue.
Jim Bakker Sentenced
On October 25, 1989, U.S. District Judge Robert Potter sentenced Jim to 45 years in prison and fined him $500,000. He ordered him to be taken straight to the medium-security Federal Correctional Institution in Talladega, Alabama. He was later transferred toa minimum-security prison in Georgia. Jim’s attorney asked the judge to consider giving his client probation, and give him five years to complete “his vision, his dream, and his promise to his partners.” Judge Potter was not dissuaded.
He listed al the millions of dollars the Bakkers had received as bonuses and the millions of dollars in real estate they had purchased with money that originated at PTL. He also read a fundraising letter Tammy had sent out to supporters during Jim’s trial. It read, in part, “We never seem to have enough. In fact, we are getting further and further behind.”
In April 1988, The Charlotte Observer won the Pulitzer Prize for meritorious public service for revealing the misuse of funds by Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s television ministry. It was the second time in the 1980s that the news organization had won the gold medal for public service. Through the course of their investigation, The Observer published more than 600 stories about the PTL, led mainly by reporter Charles E. Shepard.
Tammy Divorces Jim
Despite vowing to stand by her man while he served his time, Tammy filed for divorce from Jim in 1992. At the time, was serving as the leader of the New Covenant Church in Orlando, Florida, which the couple had established after they left PTL in South Carolina. In a letter she wrote to her supporters, she said, “For years, I have been pretending that everything is all right . . . when in fact I hurt all the time. I cannot pretend anymore.” She also wrote that she had high blood pressure, anemia, asthma, and hyperventilation as a result from stress and severe nervous strain.” The next year, she married Roe Messner, the wealthy building contractor who had helped build Heritage USA. Within just a few years of getting married, Messner was convicted of bankruptcy fraud and sentenced to 27 months in prison. He claimed his legal problems on the collapse of the PTL, because it had owned him millions of dollars for his construction work. He and Tammy reunited after he had served his time, and she died of colon cancer in 2007 at the age of 65.
Jessica Hahn says Jim never apologized to her for his role in the scandal. She did speak with Tammy Faye not long before her death in 2007. Hahn had a lot of guilt over the years and Tammy Faye graciously said if they were together in person, she would give her a hug. She felt horrible for what Jim’s wife had gone through during the scandal and regretted her role in it—wishing she’d had the maturity to handle things differently.
Hahn said she was overwhelmed by the sudden onslaught of media attention, which led her to make some questionable decisions in the years following. She posed for Playboy magazine a few different times, briefly lived in the Playboy Mansion, wrote a book about her relationship with Jim, and became a regular on Howard Stern’s radio show. She later married and moved to a ranch in California, regretting her time in the spotlight.
Jim Bakker, now 84, did not spend 45 years in prison. He was released on parole in July of 1994 and headed to a halfway house in Hendersonville, North Carolina to get back on his feet. He eventually remarried a woman named Lori and together they run “The Jim Bakker Show,” billed as an hour-long daily broadcast featuring prophetic and Biblical Revelations. The show is filmed in Missouri and is aired through DirectTV, the Dish Network, and other satellite services. Jim fully believes the apocalypse is coming and urges his followers to be prepared. In 2020, the state of Missouri sued him for selling Silver Solution dietary supplements as a preventative or cure for COVID-19.
What Happened to Heritage USA?
Today, remnants of the 21-story tower for the hotel still remains in Ft. Mill, South Carolina. The building was never occupied or completed and is considered an eyesore by York County officials and surrounding neighbors. The Passion Play ampitheater is now home to Narroway Productions, a Christian dinner theater that serves up Broadway-style musicals with special events for Christmas, Easter, mystery theater shows, and Biblical productions.
In 2004, Rick Joyner, founder and executive of MorningStar Ministries, bought 52 acres of the old PTL property for $1.6 million, and later bought 18 more acres. It uses the main part of the Heritage Grand Hotel, which was completed, as the headquarters for MorningStar Fellowship Church, MorningStar University, a K-12 School, a publishing house, and a conference center. About 100 people reside on the property. Joyner says he would like to complete the tower and renovate it for use, but he has been battling the York County Council for years, as they’ve said he defaulted on a development agreement aimed at moving along the tower renovations. Joyner and Morningstar then sued York County, claiming the council was making it difficult to get the resources necessary for finishing the tower.
Joyner still remains close with Jim and serves on the board of directors at Morningside, the Missouri complex that includes Jim’s current television show. The two televangelists share a common passion for biblical prophecies, and they interpret natural disasters as warnings from God.
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June 3, 1986
Heavenly Hosts
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The Charlotte Observer
January 27, 1986
FCC reveals backstage view of PTL
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The Charlotte Observer
March 25, 1987
Falwell defends Swaggart, Denies Conspiracy Claim
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The Charlotte Observer
November 13, 1989
Heritage USA Builder Seeks Support to Buy It
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The Charlotte Observer
April 28, 1987
Dortch used PTL money to pay Hahn
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December 16, 2017
The Charlotte Observer
Jessica Hahn, woman at center of televangelist’s fall 30 years ago, confronts her past
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The Charlotte Observer
Pulitzer Prize for PTL Reporting
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December 8, 1988
PTL Indictments spelled out
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October 6, 1989
Bakker Guilty
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The Charlotte Observer
October 25, 1989
Bakker Gets 45 Years
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Asheville Citizen Times
November 21, 1989
Tammy Bakker denies report she plans to divorce husband
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November 14, 1989
The Herald Sun
Tammy Faye Bakker slams PTL members for weak faith
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Aug 28, 1989
The Herald
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October 9, 1987
Falwell resigns from PTL
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