Background and career
James Orsen Bakker (; January 2, 1940 – October 5, 2026) was an American televangelist and convicted felon. Between 1974 and 1987, Bakker hosted the television program The PTL Club and its cable television platform, the PTL Satellite Network, with his then-wife, Tammy Faye. He also developed Heritage USA, a now-defunct Christian theme park in Fort Mill, South Carolina. After serving a prison sentence related to defrauding his parishioners, Bakker returned to televangelism in 2003, hosting The Jim Bakker Show until his 2026 death. Bakker was born in Muskegon, Michigan, and attended North Central University in Minneapolis, where he met Tammy Faye LaValley. The two married in 1961, left college, and became itinerant evangelists, eventually having two children. Early in his career, Bakker worked at Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, helping to grow the network and hosting shows including The 700 Club and a children’s program. He and Tammy Faye later co-founded the Trinity Broadcasting Network with Paul and Jan Crouch, but left after a short partnership due to disagreements, eventually establishing the PTL ministry and the PTL Satellite Network. In the late 1980s, Bakker resigned from the PTL ministry over a cover-up of hush money to church secretary Jessica Hahn for an alleged rape. Subsequent revelations of accounting fraud brought about felony charges, conviction, and imprisonment. After being divorced by Tammy Faye in 1992, Bakker was released from prison two years later and married Lori Beth Graham in 1998. Alongside Lori, Bakker returned to televangelism in 2003, founding Morningside Church in Blue Eye, Missouri, and reestablished the PTL ministry. Bakker's The Jim Bakker Show focused on apocalyptic themes and survivalist products, while distancing himself from his earlier prosperity gospel teachings. His later years included controversial claims, such as predicting major events and promoting unproven supplements, which drew legal action and criticism during the COVID-19 pandemic. Bakker wrote several books, including I Was Wrong and Time Has Come: How to Prepare Now for Epic Events Ahead.
James Orsen Bakker was born in Muskegon, Michigan, the son of Raleigh Bakker and Furnia Lynette "Furn" Irwin. Bakker attended North Central Bible College in Minneapolis, affiliated with the Assemblies of God, where he met fellow student Tammy Faye LaValley in 1960. Bakker worked at a restaurant in the Young-Quinlan department store in Minneapolis; LaValley worked at the Three Sisters, a nearby boutique. Despite already having a fiancée in Muskegon, Bakker began courting LaValley. Bakker married LaValley on April 1, 1961, and they left college to become itinerant evangelists. They had two children, Tammy Sue "Sissy" Bakker Chapman (born March 2, 1970) and Jamie Charles "Jay" Bakker (born December 18, 1975). The couple divorced on March 13, 1992. On September 4, 1998, Bakker married Lori Beth Graham, a former televangelist, fifty days after they met. In 2002, they adopted five children, siblings whom Graham had befriended in Phoenix.
In 1966, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker began working at Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) in Portsmouth, Virginia, which had an audience in the low thousands at the time. The Bakkers contributed to the network's growth, hosting a children's variety show called Come On Over that employed comic routines with puppets. Due to the success of Come On Over, Robertson made Bakker the host of a new prime-time talk show, The 700 Club, which gradually became CBN's flagship program. The Bakkers left CBN in 1973 and, soon after, joined with Paul and Jan Crouch to help co-found the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) in California. However, this partnership lasted only eight months until a falling-out between Jim Bakker and Paul Crouch caused the Bakkers to eventually leave the new network.
While under TBN, the Bakkers moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, where in May 1973 they launched an east coast version of Praise The Lord under TBN's umbrella. Less than a year later the Bakkers formed their own non profit organization, registered the PTL trademark, left the umbrella of TBN and the Crouches, and continued their show on 36 WRET Charlotte, 16 WGGS Greenville, South Carolina, and a few other stations. In 1975, they nationally debuted their own late night-style talk show, known as The PTL Club. Bakker founded the PTL Satellite Network in 1974, which aired The PTL Club and other religious television programs through local affiliates across the U.S.
Throughout the 1970s, Bakker built a headquarters for PTL in the Carolinas called Heritage Village. Over time, the Bakkers expanded the ministry to include the Heritage USA theme park in Fort Mill, South Carolina, which became the third most successful theme park in the U.S. at the time. Viewer contributions were estimated to exceed $1 million a week, with proceeds to expand the theme park and The PTL Club's mission. Bakker responded to inquiries about his use of mass media by saying: "I believe that if Jesus were alive today, he would be on TV". Two scandals brought down PTL in 1987: Bakker was accused of sexual misconduct by church secretary Jessica Hahn, which led to his resignation, and his illegal misuse of ministry funds eventually led to his imprisonment. Bakker was dismissed as an Assemblies of God minister on May 6, 1987. In 1990, the biographic television movie Fall from Grace, starring Kevin Spacey as Bakker, depicted his rise and fall. On January 18, 2019, ABC's 20/20 aired a two-hour special, entitled Unfaithfully Yours, about the PTL scandal.
In 1979, Bakker and PTL came under investigation by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for allegedly misusing funds raised on the air. The FCC report was finalized in 1982 and found that Bakker had raised $350,000 that he told viewers would go towards funding overseas missions but that was actually used to pay for part of Heritage USA. The report also found that the Bakkers used PTL funds for personal expenses. FCC commissioners voted four to three to drop the investigation, after which they allowed Bakker to sell the only TV station that he owned, therefore bypassing future FCC oversight. The FCC forwarded its report to the U.S. Department of Justice, which declined to press charges, citing insufficient evidence. Bakker used the controversy to raise more funds from his audience, branding the investigation a "witch-hunt" and asking viewers to "give the Devil a black eye". A confidential 1985 Internal Revenue Service (IRS) report found that $1.3 million in ministry funds was used for the Bakkers' personal benefit from 1980 to 1983. The report recommended that PTL be stripped of its tax-exempt status, but no action was taken until after the Jessica Hahn scandal broke in 1987. Art Harris and Michael Isikoff wrote in The Washington Post that politics may have played a role in the three government agencies taking no action against PTL despite the evidence against them, as members of the Reagan administration were not eager to go after television ministers whose evangelical followers made up their base.
