The US televangelist Jim Bakker, who built a multimillion-dollar empire and lived ?in opulence before being disgraced by a sex scandal, a conviction for defrauding followers and divorce from his television co-host Tammy Faye, has died aged 86.
The death of Bakker, whose journey from the TV pulpit to a prison cell in the 1980s inspired comparisons to the corrupt character of the fictional preacher-huckster Elmer Gantry, was revealed on ?social media by his second wife, Lori ?Bakker.
“It is with a broken heart that ?I share that my beloved husband, Jim Bakker, went home to be with the Lord this evening,” she wrote on the Facebook and Instagram pages of her husband’s latest television ministry.
She paid tribute to Bakker as a “pioneer of Christian television”. The cause and circumstances of his death were not revealed.
Bakker revived his career ?as a television…
Limit the amount of personal information you share on social media, such as your high school name or your mother’s maiden name, as these are frequently used as security question answers.