Branson, Mo. — Jim Bakker, who with his first wife, Tammy Faye, built an evangelical empire around the wildly successful “The PTL Club” TV show, but lost it to a sex scandal and financial crimes, has died. He was 86 years old.
Bakker died Monday, his second wife, Lori Bakker, said in a statement. The cause of death was not immediately clear.
The duo lived near the Missouri entertainment town of Branson and have filmed their TV show “The Jim Bakker Show” there since it debuted in 2003. Bakker suffered a stroke in 2020.
“He was a pioneer of Christian television, but to me he was my husband, my best friend, and the man I was honored to walk alongside through so many seasons of my life and ministry,” Lori Bakker said in a statement. he said.
But it was another evangelical program that made Jim and his first wife, Tammy Faye Bakker, cultural icons; so much so that they were frequently spun by late-night comedians in the 1980s and 1990s and parodied on “Saturday Night Live.” The movie “Tammy Faye’s Eyes” about their lives was released in September 2021.
Will and Deni McIntyre/Getty Images 
At its peak in the mid-1980s, Bakkers’ ministry included not only the TV show, which drew 13 million viewers each night, but also the Christian-centered Heritage USA theme park and hotel in Fort Mill, South Carolina.
Bakker was born in Muskegon Michigan and attended North Central Bible College in Minneapolis, where he met Tammy Faye. They married in 1961 and left college to start their own traveling ministry – he preached, sang and played the accordion as they traveled the country visiting churches and tent revivals.
They caught the attention of televangelist Pat Robertson and in 1965 they started a children’s program on Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network. By 1966 he was hosting the Christian talk show “The 700 Club.”
Bakker left CBN in 1972 and founded the PTL Satellite Network two years later. “PTL Club” (PTL stands for “Praise the Lord”) became his signature show.
During its heyday in the 1980s, “PTL Club” drew millions of viewers and earned millions of dollars each year from followers.
The program, a sort of Christian version of “The Tonight Show,” featured conversations with guests and Christian artists. Bakker delivered upbeat sermons and Tammy Faye, charismatic and always wearing her signature heavy mascara, sang. Most of the episodes were recorded at their sprawling complex just south of Charlotte, North Carolina.
The couple was so famous that they were often parodied by TV comedians for their lavish lifestyle and Tammy Faye’s copious make-up.
Jim Bakker involved in scandals
Their empire began to crumble in March 1987 when Bakker confessed to having had sexual intercourse with church clerk Jessica Hahn. Bakker was forced to resign from his own empire, turning over its operations to pastor and publisher Jerry Falwell.
Tammy Faye remained by Bakker’s side, often with tears streaming from her mascara, even though many saw her downfall as a fitting symbol of the greed and hypocrisy of the 1980s.
Things got worse.
In 1988, Bakker was indicted on charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy following an investigation into PTL’s finances. He was convicted and sentenced to 45 years in federal prison, but the sentence was later reduced to eight years.
At the press conference after Bakker was found guilty, Tammy Faye stood in front of the microphones and sang “On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand.”
Their marriage collapsed, and Tammy Faye divorced Bakker in 1992, just shy of their 31st anniversary, while he was still in prison. He later married construction contractor Roe Messner, whose projects included the Heritage USA theme park. Messner was convicted of bankruptcy fraud in 1995 and spent nearly two years in prison.
Tammy Faye died of colon cancer in 2007.
Bakker was released on parole in 1994. He married his second wife, Lori, in 1998. Five years later, the couple launched “The Jim Bakker Show” on the PTL Satellite Network.
In June 2021, Bakker and Morningside Church Productions Inc. settled a lawsuit accusing him of falsely claiming that his health supplement Silver Solution could cure COVID-19. The settlement called for $156,000 to be refunded to people who paid or contributed money to buy the product in the early days of the outbreak.
Bakker and a guest made the treatment claim throughout 11 episodes in February and March 2020, the lawsuit said.
Bakker and Tammy Faye had two children. He and his second wife adopted five children in 2002.