Jim Bakker was a popular televangelist, known for cohosting The PTL Club (also called The Jim and Tammy Show) with his first wife, Tammy Faye Bakker. By the mid-1980s, the couple had built a $125 million empire. However, everything unraveled in 1987, when it was revealed that Bakker had paid an ex-employee, Jessica Hahn, $279,000 of ministry money to remain quiet about a 1980 sexual encounter. In addition, it was alleged that the televangelist had had homosexual encounters with another employee. Bakker resigned that year, and he was convicted of fraud and conspiracy in 1989. He and Tammy Faye divorced in 1992. Bakker was released on parole in 1994 after having served less than five years. In 2003 he returned to televangelism with The Jim Bakker Show, where he preached about the coming apocalypse.
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