EXCLUSIVE: Disgraced Televangelist Jim Bakker's Final Years Revealed
Details about disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker's final years offer a fresh look at his later life.
Oct. 30 2026, Published 7:00 a.m. ET
Disgraced TV preacher Jim Bakker went to his grave, brought down by his lust for s--, power and money, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
The evangelist, who died on Oct. 5 at the age of 86, built an empire through the PTL (Praise the Lord) TV ministry in South Carolina, but it crumbled when his extramarital sexual encounter with a church secretary was revealed.
Jim Bakker's Lavish Lifestyle Crumbled After Explosive Sexual Assault Allegation
Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye drove matching Rolls-Royces.
Before his downfall, PTL's take in 1986 totaled $129million and the ministry had more than 2million TV followers.
Bakker and wife Tammy Faye lived like royalty, splitting their time between an estate in ritzy Palm Springs, Calif., a luxury Florida condo, and a home in Tennessee while driving matching Rolls-Royces.
He lost it all after church secretary Jessica Hahn claimed he raped her in a Florida hotel room in December 1980.
Hahn was 21 at the time and says she was a virgin when Bakker, then 40, "just did everything he could do to a woman. He started almost from the top of my head and didn't stop for what seemed like an hour and a half."
Jim Bakker's Fraud Conviction Destroyed His Televangelist Empire
Jessica Hahn accused Bakker of rape, an allegation he denied.
Bakker denied her accusation and tried to buy her silence by tapping the PTL treasury to pay her $265,000 in hush money.
He was booted from the Assemblies of God and in 1989, he was convicted of fraud and conspiracy for raising $158million by overselling timeshares in a now-shuttered Christian theme park in Fort Mill, S.C., called Heritage USA.
Tammy Faye divorced him while he was behind bars and later married Roe Messner, who went to jail himself in 1997 for concealing $400,000 in assets from creditors. She died of cancer in 2007 at age 65.
Bakker was paroled after serving eight years of a 45-year sentence – and on the day he was freed in 1994, the con man immediately started begging his former followers for money.
Jim Bakker Faced Fresh Controversies Over Survival Food and COVID Cure Claims
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Tammy Sue Bakker offered three items from her father, Jim, for donations of up to $500.
Shockingly, his daughter Tammy Sue Bakker sent out an appeal promising three items from her father in exchange for "love offerings" up to $500.
In 2003, the felon launched The Jim Bakker Show and founded a new Christian enclave called Morningside near Branson, Mo., where he lived for free with second wife Lori Beth Bakker.
By 2015, he'd cooked up a macabre new scam, selling overpriced buckets of survival food to followers by convincing them an apocalypse was coming.
In 2021, the convicted fraudster made headlines again when he and his production company were forced to pay $156,000 for peddling a colloidal silver supplement they claimed could cure COVID-19.
