Lentorama 2023: It Happened on Holy Satuday

Day 23: April fools?

Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker met at Bible college, and were married on April 1, 1961. After graduation they moved into ministry, but quickly became part of the Christian Broadcasting Network, hosting a kid's show before Jim became the first host of The 700 Club. They would leave CBN and move to California to help launch the Trinity Broadcasting Network, but differences with that network's founder saw the Bakkers relocate to Charlotte.

It was there that Jim was approached to buy two hours of time per day on a local TV station. He did so, launching The PTL Club, a religious-themed talk show much like The 700 Club. The show was a success, and its growth allowed the Bakkers a national audience. The money sent in by that national audience allowed the Bakkers to open Heritage USA, a campus with a theme park, TV studio, and other attractions. At one point it was the third-largest theme park by number of visitors in the US.

And then everything fell apart. The government had been investigating PTL and the Bakkers as far back as 1979, over allegations that church funds were being redirected for personal use. A later IRS investigation suggested taking away PTL's tax exempt status in 1985. But nothing really happned to the Bakkers until the 1987 rape accusation by former church secretary Jessica Hahn. 

Bakker denied the accusation but did admit to an affair and a hush money payment to Hahn. He never was charged for a crime over the accusation, but did wind up facing 24 counts of fraud and conspiracy. He was found guilty on all of them, and sentenced to 45 years in prison (he once had Lyndon LaRouche as a cellmate). That sentence was eventually reduced to eight years, of which he served five.

Once out, Bakker returned to television with a self-named show, offered mostly on sattelite TV. His religious outlook became apocalyptic, focusing on end times prophecy and the sale of bulk freeze dried food. During the Covid-19 pandemic he got into legal trouble for hawking colloidal silver products as a cure.

Tammy Faye would divorce Bakker in 1992, got remarried, and became an unexpected gay icon based on her early support and advocacy for people with AIDS. She would also co-host a talk show with Jim J. Bullock, make other TV appearances, and wrote books. She had a long battle with colon cancer, which eventually claimed her life in 2007.