Jim Bakker

James Orsen Bakker was born on 2 January 1940 in Muskegon, Michigan, the son of Raleigh Bakker and Furnia Lynette "Furn" Irwin. His sister Donna Puckett later served alongside him in ministry for many years.

Bakker attended North Central Bible College (now North Central University), a Bible college in Minneapolis affiliated with the Assemblies of God. There in 1960 he met a fellow student, Tammy Faye LaValley. While studying he worked at a restaurant in the Young-Quinlan department store, while Tammy Faye worked at a nearby boutique. The couple married in April 1961 and left college to become itinerant evangelists. He was ordained as an Assemblies of God minister, a status he held until 1987.

Christian Broadcasting Network. In 1966 Jim and Tammy Faye joined Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) in Portsmouth, Virginia. Their children's variety show Come On Over, which used puppets and comic routines, helped the young network grow, and Robertson made Bakker host of a new prime-time talk show, The 700 Club, which became CBN's flagship programme.

Trinity Broadcasting Network. The Bakkers left CBN in 1973 and helped Paul and Jan Crouch found the Trinity Broadcasting Network in California. The partnership lasted about eight months before a falling-out between Bakker and Paul Crouch.

PTL. In Charlotte, North Carolina, the Bakkers launched Praise The Lord in 1973, then formed their own non-profit ministry and registered the PTL name. Bakker founded the PTL Satellite Network in 1974, and in 1975 The PTL Club debuted nationally as a Christian talk and variety show. He built a ministry headquarters called Heritage Village and then Heritage USA in Fort Mill, South Carolina, a 2,300-acre Christian theme park, water park and residential resort built by church builder Roe Messner. At its peak it was among the most successful theme parks in the United States, and viewer contributions were estimated at more than one million dollars a week.

The Jim Bakker Show. After prison, Bakker worked with a ministry in Los Angeles and later led New Covenant Fellowship in Vernon, Florida. He moved to Branson, Missouri, in 2002 and in 2003 began broadcasting The Jim Bakker Show daily with his wife Lori from Studio City Cafe, a converted restaurant. Backed by businessman Jerry Crawford, the ministry moved in 2008 to Morningside, a complex near Blue Eye, Missouri, home of Morningside Church. The show was carried on a range of Christian and satellite networks and featured guest ministers presented as prophets. Bakker said PTL now stood for "Prophets Talking Loud". He hosted the programme until his death.

Bakker married Tammy Faye LaValley on 1 April 1961. They had two children, Tammy Sue "Sissy" Bakker Chapman, born 2 March 1970, and Jamie Charles "Jay" Bakker, born 18 December 1975, who became a pastor and led a letter-writing campaign for his father's parole. Tammy Faye divorced him on 13 March 1992 while he was in prison, later married Roe Messner, and died of cancer in 2007.

On 4 September 1998 Bakker married Lori Beth Graham, a former televangelist, fifty days after they met. In 2002 they adopted five siblings Lori had befriended in Phoenix. Lori co-hosted The Jim Bakker Show with him for more than two decades. Bakker had a minor stroke in 2020, took a sabbatical, and returned to the programme on 8 July 2020. In late September 2026 he announced the death of his sister Donna Puckett, writing that hearing her play the piano had often brought peace to his heart.

In his PTL years Bakker preached prosperity theology. In his 1980 book Eight Keys to Success he wrote: "God wants you to be happy, God wants you to be rich, God wants you to prosper." In prison he read the whole Bible for the first time and concluded that he had taken passages out of context to support that teaching. His 1996 book I Was Wrong renounced it.

His later ministry was strongly apocalyptic, focused on biblical prophecy, the end times and practical preparation for disaster. He made a number of contested statements, including describing hurricanes as divine judgment and warning that impeaching Donald Trump would trigger a civil war, which drew criticism from other Christian leaders. He spoke warmly of Billy Graham, who visited him in prison, and paid his respects at the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte after Graham died in 2018.

Bakker was one of the pioneers of Christian television. He helped build CBN and The 700 Club, was present at the founding of TBN, and created his own satellite network, showing how a talk-show format could carry religious broadcasting into millions of homes. Heritage USA was one of the most ambitious Christian leisure projects ever built in the United States.

The PTL scandal, together with Jimmy Swaggart's scandal a year later, changed televangelism. It brought far closer media and regulatory scrutiny of television ministers and their finances. Bakker became the first major television evangelist convicted of a felony. His later return to the air, and his public confession that he had been wrong, made his life one of the best-known stories of fall and second chances in American religion.

Bakker's ministry was not known for formal awards. The coverage of his downfall by The Charlotte Observer won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. His life became the subject of a television film, a documentary and a Hollywood feature.

Books by Jim Bakker: Move That Mountain (1976) Eight Keys to Success (1980) I Was Wrong (1996) Prosperity and the Coming Apocalypse (1998) The Refuge: The Joy of Christian Community in a Torn-Apart World (2000) Time Has Come: How to Prepare Now for Epic Events Ahead (2014) You Can Make It: God's Faithfulness in Dark Times (2021)

Portrayals: Kevin Spacey played Bakker in the 1990 television film Fall from Grace. The 2000 documentary The Eyes of Tammy Faye told the couple's story, and in the 2021 feature film The Eyes of Tammy Faye he was played by Andrew Garfield opposite Jessica Chastain. ABC's 20/20 aired the two-hour special Unfaithfully Yours about the PTL scandal on 18 January 2019.

In 1979 the Federal Communications Commission investigated PTL for allegedly misusing money raised on air. Its 1982 report found that $350,000 raised for overseas missions went toward Heritage USA, but the commission dropped the case. A confidential 1985 IRS report found $1.3 million in ministry funds had been used for the Bakkers' personal benefit.

In 1987 it emerged that $279,000 of PTL money had been paid to church secretary Jessica Hahn, who said Bakker and former co-host John Wesley Fletcher had drugged and raped her. Bakker admitted a sexual encounter but denied rape, and resigned on 19 March 1987. He also denied, under oath, allegations of homosexual encounters.

Prosecutors showed that PTL sold tens of thousands of $1,000 lifetime partnerships promising three nights a year in Heritage USA hotels, although only one 500-room hotel was finished. In October 1989 a jury convicted him on 24 counts of fraud and conspiracy and Judge Robert Potter sentenced him to 45 years and a $500,000 fine. In 1991 an appeals court upheld the conviction but voided the sentence because of the judge's remarks about religion, and in 1992 the sentence was cut to eight years. He was paroled in July 1994 and left federal custody on 1 December 1994 owing the IRS about $6 million.

In 2020 his show promoted a silver solution in connection with the coronavirus. The New York attorney general ordered him to stop, the FDA and FTC sent a warning letter, and Missouri and Arkansas sued. Missouri settled in June 2021, barring health claims for the product and requiring about $157,000 in restitution.

Jim Bakker died on the evening of Monday 5 October 2026, aged 86. His wife Lori announced his death on The Jim Bakker Show's Facebook and Instagram pages, writing: "It is with a broken heart that I share that my beloved husband, Jim Bakker, went home to be with the Lord this evening. For 66 years, Jim gave his life to preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ." She added that even in his final days his heart was still for the work of God, asked for prayers and privacy, and wrote: "Jim finished his race with faith. His voice, his vision, and his legacy will never be forgotten." The place and cause of death were not made public. Funeral arrangements had not been announced at the time of writing. Earlier in 2026, in February, his son Jay had publicly denied false rumours that his father had died.