Jim Bakker, the televangelist who turned a daily Christian talk show into a broadcasting empire before a sex scandal and a federal fraud conviction brought it down, died on the evening of Monday, Oct. 5, 2026. He was 86. No cause of death was disclosed.
His wife, Lori Bakker, announced the death in a statement posted to the Instagram account of “The Jim Bakker Show” and shared on the program’s Facebook page and the PTL website. His son Jay Bakker confirmed the death in a post on social media.
“It is with a broken heart that I share that my beloved husband, Jim Bakker, went home to be with the Lord this evening,” Lori Bakker wrote in the statement. She said her husband had given 66 years to preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ and called him a pioneer of Christian television.
A Ministry Built for Television
Bakker founded “The PTL Club” — short for Praise the Lord — in 1974 and co-hosted it with his first wife, Tammy Faye Bakker, until 1987. At its height the program drew as many as 13 million viewers a night and the ministry collected $129 million a year. It expanded into the PTL Satellite Network and Heritage USA, a 2,300-acre religious theme park and hotel complex in Fort Mill, S.C., that is now defunct.
The couple became fixtures of American pop culture as much as of American religion. Late-night comedians and “Saturday Night Live” mocked them relentlessly for their lavish lifestyle and Tammy Faye’s famously heavy mascara.
The Collapse of the PTL Empire
The empire came apart in 1987, when Bakker resigned after admitting a sexual encounter with church secretary Jessica Hahn and paying hush money. The ministry was handed to televangelist Jerry Falwell. Hahn accused Bakker and “PTL Club” co-host John Wesley Fletcher of drugging and raping her; Bakker maintained the encounter had been consensual. He was accused of using $279,000 in church funds to buy her silence.
In 1988 he was indicted on 24 federal counts, including mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy tied to PTL’s finances. Prosecutors said he sold far more $1,000 “lifetime partnerships,” each promising yearly stays at Heritage USA, than the resort could ever accommodate, and pitched them on air and by mail. A jury convicted him in 1989. He was sentenced to 45 years in federal prison, a term later reduced to eight years, and was released on parole in 1994 after serving about five years.
Tammy Faye divorced him in 1992 while he was incarcerated and later married Roe Messner. She died of colon cancer in 2007.
Branson, Survival Gear and Silver Solution
After leaving prison, Bakker renounced the prosperity gospel he had preached at PTL and wrote the book “I Was Wrong.” He married Lori Beth Graham in 1998, and the couple launched “The Jim Bakker Show” from the Branson, Mo., area in 2003, filming in the Ozarks. The program became known for its sales of survivalist products. He suffered a stroke in 2020.
Controversy trailed him into his final years. Missouri took Bakker to court in 2020, alleging he had falsely touted a product called Silver Solution as a cure for COVID-19. Under a settlement filed Tuesday, June 22, 2021, he agreed to refund $156,000 to viewers who had paid or donated to get the supplement early in the pandemic, and to limits on how it could be marketed.
A Divisive Figure to the End
The Bakkers’ rise and fall drew Hollywood twice. Actor Andrew Garfield played Bakker in the 2021 film “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” opposite Jessica Chastain, who won the Best Actress Oscar in 2022 for her portrayal of Tammy Faye. Actor Kevin Spacey had played him in the 1990 NBC television film “Fall from Grace.” Bakker was most recently hosting “The Jim Bakker Show” on digital platforms as part of the PTL Network, and he remained a divisive figure in religious broadcasting until his death.
Bakker is survived by his wife and seven children — Tammy Sue and Jay, his children with Tammy Faye, and five children he adopted with Lori. Both Jay and Lori Bakker asked for privacy. “Jim finished his race with faith,” she said in the statement.