US televangelist Jim Bakker, disgraced from sex scandal and fraud, dies at 86

US televangelist Jim Bakker, who built a multimillion‑dollar media empire before being jailed for fraud and conspiracy, has died at age 86. Bakker and his then‑wife Tammy Faye launched the Christian television program The PTL Club in 1974; at its peak the show drew 13 cardinal viewers each day. The death was announced on Monday by Bakker’s second wife, Lori Bakker, who called him “a pioneer of Christian television”. By the late 1980s the Bakkers’ empire began to crumble after Bakker became entangled in a scandal involving mishandled funds and allegations of fraud; Tammy Faye, who divorced him in 1992, was never charged. Bakker remarried in 1998 and, together with Lori, started a new TV ministry in 2003. Lori Bakker described her late husband as “my champion friend, and the main I was honoured to locomotion beside done truthful galore seasons of beingness and ministry”. She did not specify the origin of death. The original PTL Club, billed as “Praise the Lord” or “People That Love”, remains the program that cemented Bakker’s fame alongside Tammy Faye. At its height the ministry employed 2,000 people and operated Heritage USA, a 2,300‑acre (930‑hectare) theme park in Fort Mill, South Carolina. The couple’s lavish lifestyle included a private jet, multiple homes, luxury automobiles, jewelry and even an air‑conditioned dog house. In