Jim Bakker, who built 'PTL Club' televangelism empire, has died at 86

FILE - Television evangelist Jim Bakker poses in front of the Water Park in Columbia, SC, one of the attractions at his Heritage USA, March 19, 1987. Lou Krasky/AP hide caption

Jim Bakker, who along with his first wife Tammy Faye built an evangelical empire around the hugely successful "The PTL Club" TV show, only to lose it all over a sex scandal and financial crimes, has died. He was 86.

Bakker died Monday, his second wife, Lori Bakker, said in a statement. His cause of death was not immediately clear.

"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 beside through so many seasons of life and ministry," she said.

The pair lived near the Missouri entertainment town of Branson and filmed their TV show "The Jim Bakker Show" there since it launched in 2003. Bakker suffered a stroke in 2020.

But it was another evangelical program that made Jim and his first wife Tammy Faye Bakker cultural icons — so much so that they were often skewered in the 1980s and 1990s by late-night comedians and parodied on "Saturday Night Live." A theatrical movie on their lives, "The Eyes of Tammy Faye," was released in September 2021.

At its peak in the mid-1980s, the Bakkers' ministry included not only the TV show drawing up to 13 million nightly viewers but also the Christian-based 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 dropped out of college to start their own traveling ministry — he preached, she sang and played the accordion as they crossed the country visiting churches and tent revivals.