Jim Bakker, whose charismatic broadcasts with his first wife, Tammy Faye, made him one of the most recognizable figures in American evangelicalism before scandal and financial crimes shattered the ministry, has died. He was 86.
Bakker died Monday, according to his second wife, Lori Bakker. She did not disclose a cause.
Lori Bakker described him as a trailblazer in Christian television and, in personal terms, as her husband, best friend and the man she felt privileged to stand beside through many chapters of life and ministry.
The couple lived near Branson, Missouri, an entertainment hub where they had taped “The Jim Bakker Show” since 2003. Bakker experienced a stroke in 2020.
His earlier program, “The PTL Club,” turned Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker into cultural icons. At its peak in the mid-1980s, it attracted roughly 13 million viewers a night, drawing mockery from late-night hosts and parody on “Saturday Night Live.”
The Bakkers also developed Heritage USA, a Christian theme park and hotel in Fort Mill, South Carolina. Their turbulent story later became the subject of the 2021 film “The Eyes of Tammy Faye.”
Bakker was born in Muskegon, Michigan, and attended North Central Bible College in Minneapolis, where he met Tammy Faye. Married in 1961, they left college to launch a traveling ministry. He preached while she sang and played accordion at churches and tent revivals nationwide.
Televangelist Pat Robertson noticed their work, and in 1965 they began a children’s show on Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network. A year later, Bakker was hosting “The 700 Club.”
But the empire that made them famous eventually collapsed under the weight of a sex scandal and financial crimes, a downfall that became a defining chapter in the history of televangelism.