WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.100 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are going 00:00:03.100 --> 00:00:04.980 to do something a little bit different. We are 00:00:04.980 --> 00:00:08.640 going to try to look behind one of the most famous 00:00:08.640 --> 00:00:11.460 masks in American history. And you mean that 00:00:11.460 --> 00:00:14.119 in the most literal sense possible? I do. I really 00:00:14.119 --> 00:00:17.640 do. I'm talking about a mask of mascara and false 00:00:17.640 --> 00:00:20.679 eyelashes and, you know, that tattooed on permanent 00:00:20.679 --> 00:00:23.940 eyeliner. We're talking about Tammy Faye Messner, 00:00:24.120 --> 00:00:28.079 formerly Baker. Yeah. And that name, for anyone 00:00:28.079 --> 00:00:30.350 who lived through the 80s, it just instantly 00:00:30.350 --> 00:00:33.890 conjures this very specific image. Oh, 100%. 00:00:33.890 --> 00:00:35.950 And usually it's a caricature, right? It's the 00:00:35.950 --> 00:00:38.369 crying woman on the news standing next to her 00:00:38.369 --> 00:00:40.850 disgraced preacher husband. She was the punchline 00:00:40.850 --> 00:00:43.189 of a thousand late night monologues. Exactly. 00:00:43.530 --> 00:00:45.710 If you grew up in the 80s or 90s, she was basically 00:00:45.710 --> 00:00:48.270 a walking cartoon character. But the thing is, 00:00:48.329 --> 00:00:50.109 the more I looked into the stack of research 00:00:50.109 --> 00:00:52.570 we have for today, the more I realized that the 00:00:52.570 --> 00:00:54.829 cartoon version is, well, it's just not the whole 00:00:54.829 --> 00:00:58.250 story. It's boring even. The real story is so 00:00:58.250 --> 00:01:00.799 much weirder. darker and honestly a lot more 00:01:00.799 --> 00:01:02.799 inspiring than I ever would have expected it 00:01:02.799 --> 00:01:06.180 is a story of extremes I mean you have extreme 00:01:06.180 --> 00:01:09.180 poverty then this unbelievable extreme wealth 00:01:09.180 --> 00:01:11.980 you have extreme faith and then this this just 00:01:11.980 --> 00:01:14.719 colossal scandal and then a third act that nobody 00:01:14.719 --> 00:01:18.519 saw coming the incredible third act of redemption 00:01:18.519 --> 00:01:20.939 yeah it's not just a story about a televangelist 00:01:20.939 --> 00:01:22.879 it's really a story about American culture about 00:01:22.879 --> 00:01:26.019 the media and you know how we treat women who 00:01:26.019 --> 00:01:27.939 are just maybe a little too loud or take up too 00:01:27.939 --> 00:01:30.579 much space yeah that's a big part of it so we've 00:01:30.579 --> 00:01:32.700 got a massive stack of records to get through 00:01:32.700 --> 00:01:36.299 today biographies, court documents. We have transcripts 00:01:36.299 --> 00:01:38.120 of old Larry King interviews, which are fascinating, 00:01:38.280 --> 00:01:41.040 and even accounts from reality TV show tapings. 00:01:41.040 --> 00:01:43.560 Right. And our mission today is to try and figure 00:01:43.560 --> 00:01:46.239 out how a girl from the freezing cold border 00:01:46.239 --> 00:01:48.939 of Minnesota co -built a multimillion dollar 00:01:48.939 --> 00:01:51.939 religious empire, watched it all burn to the 00:01:51.939 --> 00:01:54.579 ground in this spectacular ball of fire, and 00:01:54.579 --> 00:01:58.310 then somehow... somehow emerged from the ashes 00:01:58.310 --> 00:02:01.590 as a gay icon and a beloved pop culture figure. 00:02:01.769 --> 00:02:03.670 It's an incredible arc. And along the way, we 00:02:03.670 --> 00:02:05.650 really have to unpack the prosperity gospel, 00:02:05.790 --> 00:02:08.909 which is a huge piece of this. We have to talk 00:02:08.909 --> 00:02:12.050 about the cultural panic around AIDS in the 1980s 00:02:12.050 --> 00:02:15.349 and just the bizarre psychology of living your 00:02:15.349 --> 00:02:18.509 entire life. I mean, even your darkest, most 00:02:18.509 --> 00:02:21.349 humiliating moments in front of a television 00:02:21.349 --> 00:02:23.590 camera. I'm really interested in the whole air 00:02:23.590 --> 00:02:25.849 conditioned doghouse side of things. Just the 00:02:25.849 --> 00:02:28.949 sheer drama of it all. And for me, it's analyzing 00:02:28.949 --> 00:02:31.930 how she really deviated from those traditional 00:02:31.930 --> 00:02:35.490 evangelical gender roles. She was not the quiet 00:02:35.490 --> 00:02:37.310 wife standing in the background. Not at all. 00:02:37.610 --> 00:02:40.069 So let's start at the very beginning. Before 00:02:40.069 --> 00:02:42.389 the gold plated bathrooms, before the theme park, 00:02:42.569 --> 00:02:45.949 let's go to International Falls, Minnesota. The 00:02:45.949 --> 00:02:48.349 icebox of the nation. I've never been, but the 00:02:48.349 --> 00:02:50.270 name alone just makes me want to put on a sweater. 00:02:50.569 --> 00:02:52.770 It's brutal. I mean, we are talking about a town 00:02:52.770 --> 00:02:55.050 on the Canadian border where winter lasts for 00:02:55.050 --> 00:02:57.569 what feels like half the year. Tammy Faye was 00:02:57.569 --> 00:03:00.870 born there in 1942 as Camera Faye LaVallee. Okay. 00:03:01.449 --> 00:03:03.870 And to really understand her, I think you have 00:03:03.870 --> 00:03:05.590 to understand the isolation of a place like that. 00:03:05.729 --> 00:03:07.909 In the 1940s, International Falls wasn't just 00:03:07.909 --> 00:03:09.930 cold. It was, you know, it was disconnected from 00:03:09.930 --> 00:03:11.840 the rest of the world. And from what I read, 00:03:11.860 --> 00:03:14.280 her home life wasn't exactly warm and fuzzy either, 00:03:14.419 --> 00:03:17.439 was it? No, it wasn't. And this is a really crucial 00:03:17.439 --> 00:03:20.340 piece of psychological context for everything 00:03:20.340 --> 00:03:23.360 that comes later. Her mother... Rachel Minney, 00:03:23.419 --> 00:03:26.960 had a very, very difficult life. She's a dedicated 00:03:26.960 --> 00:03:28.780 homemaker, but she'd gone through a really painful 00:03:28.780 --> 00:03:31.719 divorce shortly after Tammy was born. Which today, 00:03:31.960 --> 00:03:34.879 a divorce is, you know, it's common, but we're 00:03:34.879 --> 00:03:36.620 talking about a very conservative religious community 00:03:36.620 --> 00:03:39.180 in the early 1940s. That's a huge scandal. Oh, 00:03:39.180 --> 00:03:42.419 it's a scarlet letter. Absolutely. And the fallout 00:03:42.419 --> 00:03:45.509 from that divorce. deeply deeply affected tammy's 00:03:45.509 --> 00:03:48.009 mother the records show that the whole experience 00:03:48.009 --> 00:03:51.310 soured her mother against ministers wow she felt 00:03:51.310 --> 00:03:54.629 alienated by the church she felt judged so tammy 00:03:54.629 --> 00:03:56.370 grows up in this house where the institutional 00:03:56.370 --> 00:03:58.740 church is viewed with deep suspicion, if not 00:03:58.740 --> 00:04:01.560 outright hostility, by the most important person 00:04:01.560 --> 00:04:04.580 in our world. Which is such a massive irony when 00:04:04.580 --> 00:04:06.139 you think about it. The woman who would go on 00:04:06.139 --> 00:04:08.000 to become one of the most famous televangelists 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:11.400 in history was raised by a woman who just did 00:04:11.400 --> 00:04:14.199 not trust preachers. It creates this fascinating 00:04:14.199 --> 00:04:16.860 tension right from the start, doesn't it? Tammy 00:04:16.860 --> 00:04:19.839 is the eldest in a large blended family. Both 00:04:19.839 --> 00:04:22.439 her parents remarried and she has all this responsibility. 00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:26.959 But she also has this innate magnetic pull. toward 00:04:26.959 --> 00:04:29.959 the very thing her mother distrusts, the altar. 00:04:30.139 --> 00:04:32.639 Right. She talks about feeling the spirit at 00:04:32.639 --> 00:04:36.420 a really young age. It was almost an act of rebellion 00:04:36.420 --> 00:04:39.100 for her to become so deeply religious. That's 00:04:39.100 --> 00:04:41.019 a really interesting take, religion as teenage 00:04:41.019 --> 00:04:43.120 rebellion. You know, usually it's rock and roll 00:04:43.120 --> 00:04:45.839 or sneaking cigarettes. For Tammy Faye, it was 00:04:45.839 --> 00:04:48.649 speaking in tongues. Precisely. And that drive, 00:04:48.730 --> 00:04:51.069 that ambition, it took her out of the icebox 00:04:51.069 --> 00:04:53.910 and down to Minneapolis to North Central Bible 00:04:53.910 --> 00:04:56.730 College in 1960. She was trying to make ends 00:04:56.730 --> 00:04:59.290 meet, working in a boutique. And this is where 00:04:59.290 --> 00:05:01.810 the movie really starts. This is the moment she 00:05:01.810 --> 00:05:04.329 meets Jim Backer. The big meet cute. It really 00:05:04.329 --> 00:05:06.949 was. Jim was good there, too, and he was working 00:05:06.949 --> 00:05:09.430 at a restaurant inside a department store. They 00:05:09.430 --> 00:05:12.750 met in 1960. And the chemistry must have been 00:05:12.750 --> 00:05:15.879 just, I don't know, nuclear. Because they did 00:05:15.879 --> 00:05:17.819 not waste any time, they got married on April 00:05:17.819 --> 00:05:21.360 Fool's Day, 1961. April Fool's Day. You really 00:05:21.360 --> 00:05:23.680 can't write this stuff better than reality does. 00:05:23.959 --> 00:05:26.899 It's a detail that biographers always, always 00:05:26.899 --> 00:05:28.800 point out. It just feels like this giant piece 00:05:28.800 --> 00:05:31.240 of foreshadowing. Yeah, it really does. But at 00:05:31.240 --> 00:05:33.139 the time, of course, it was just young love. 00:05:33.620 --> 00:05:35.620 They actually dropped out of Bible college to 00:05:35.620 --> 00:05:37.560 get married. They chose each other over their 00:05:37.560 --> 00:05:40.610 formal education. And almost immediately... They 00:05:40.610 --> 00:05:42.889 hit the road. Right. This is the itinerant preacher 00:05:42.889 --> 00:05:46.250 phase. I have this mental image of them in a 00:05:46.250 --> 00:05:49.410 beat up old car just driving from one tiny church 00:05:49.410 --> 00:05:51.589 basement to the next. That is pretty much spot 00:05:51.589 --> 00:05:54.329 on. They were traveling evangelists. Jim would 00:05:54.329 --> 00:05:57.949 preach. And Tammy, well, Tammy was the secret 00:05:57.949 --> 00:06:00.389 weapon. She played the accordion and she sang. 00:06:00.759 --> 00:06:03.160 The accordion. You don't see a lot of accordion 00:06:03.160 --> 00:06:05.319 in modern worship bands, do you? No, you do not. 00:06:05.480 --> 00:06:08.439 It was very of its time, very down home. But 00:06:08.439 --> 00:06:10.040 it signaled something really important about 00:06:10.040 --> 00:06:12.860 them. They weren't just theologians. They were 00:06:12.860 --> 00:06:15.600 entertainers. They understood that to keep people 00:06:15.600 --> 00:06:18.259 engaged, especially in these small rural churches, 00:06:18.459 --> 00:06:21.339 you had to put on a show. But the accordion wasn't 00:06:21.339 --> 00:06:22.939 what launched them into the big time. It was 00:06:22.939 --> 00:06:26.439 something much, much weirder. It's so much weirder. 00:06:26.560 --> 00:06:28.259 Are we about to talk about the puppets? We are 00:06:28.259 --> 00:06:29.800 about to talk about the cops. Okay, I need you 00:06:29.800 --> 00:06:32.240 to explain this to me. Because when I think of 00:06:32.240 --> 00:06:34.819 televangelism, I think of these, you know, guys 00:06:34.819 --> 00:06:38.930 in slick suits shouting about hellfire. Do you 00:06:38.930 --> 00:06:41.470 not think of, what were their names? Susie Moppet. 00:06:41.490 --> 00:06:44.750 Susie Moppet and Allied the Alligator. Yes. And 00:06:44.750 --> 00:06:46.550 this is a critical part of their evolution that 00:06:46.550 --> 00:06:49.810 often gets skipped over. In the 1960s, they started 00:06:49.810 --> 00:06:52.629 working for Pat Robertson at CBN, the Christian 00:06:52.629 --> 00:06:54.550 Broadcasting Network. Right. But they weren't 00:06:54.550 --> 00:06:56.750 hired to preach to adults. They were hired to 00:06:56.750 --> 00:06:58.610 do children's programming. So they were basically 00:06:58.610 --> 00:07:01.910 the Christian Muppets. In a way, yeah. They created 00:07:01.910 --> 00:07:04.009 a show called Jim and Tammy, which ran for almost 00:07:04.009 --> 00:07:08.449 a decade, from 1964 to 1973. And this experience 00:07:08.449 --> 00:07:10.930 is absolutely the key to understanding all of 00:07:10.930 --> 00:07:14.089 their future success. How so? Well, think about 00:07:14.089 --> 00:07:16.509 it. Working with puppets taught them how to be 00:07:16.509 --> 00:07:18.569 comfortable on camera for hours and hours at 00:07:18.569 --> 00:07:21.290 a time. It taught them how to simplify complex 00:07:21.290 --> 00:07:23.750 theological ideas into these little bite -sized 00:07:23.750 --> 00:07:26.949 digestible nuggets. And there's a psychological 00:07:26.949 --> 00:07:29.470 safety in puppets, isn't there? You can make 00:07:29.470 --> 00:07:31.730 the puppet say things that you might be too afraid 00:07:31.730 --> 00:07:35.569 to say yourself. 100%. Tammy voiced Susie Moppet. 00:07:35.649 --> 00:07:38.910 So Susie could be sassy. Susie could ask the 00:07:38.910 --> 00:07:42.089 dumb questions about God that maybe people in 00:07:42.089 --> 00:07:43.910 the audience were thinking but were too afraid 00:07:43.910 --> 00:07:47.199 to ask. It allowed Tammy to develop this persona 00:07:47.199 --> 00:07:50.800 of the innocent inquirer. It made her incredibly 00:07:50.800 --> 00:07:53.439 relatable. So they spent a decade doing this 00:07:53.439 --> 00:07:55.000 children's show. They're building a following. 00:07:55.060 --> 00:07:56.879 They're learning the ropes of TV production. 00:07:57.120 --> 00:07:59.920 But clearly they had bigger ambitions than just 00:07:59.920 --> 00:08:01.819 holding a fake allegation. Much, much bigger. 00:08:01.939 --> 00:08:04.620 In 1974, they decided to strike out on their 00:08:04.620 --> 00:08:07.779 own. They left CBN, and they briefly helped found 00:08:07.779 --> 00:08:10.680 TBN, the Trinity Broadcasting Network. But that 00:08:10.680 --> 00:08:12.740 ended pretty poorly with some infighting. So 00:08:12.740 --> 00:08:14.459 they moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, and 00:08:14.459 --> 00:08:16.819 they started the PTL Club. PTL, praise the Lord. 00:08:16.939 --> 00:08:20.199 People that love, or as the cynical bumper stickers 00:08:20.199 --> 00:08:22.519 would later say, pass the lewd. Right. But in 00:08:22.519 --> 00:08:25.019 1974, it was praise the Lord, and they set up 00:08:25.019 --> 00:08:27.060 shop in an abandoned furniture store. I just 00:08:27.060 --> 00:08:29.819 love that detail. It's so scrappy and American. 00:08:30.199 --> 00:08:33.539 It was. But it did not stay scrappy for very 00:08:33.539 --> 00:08:37.139 long. The growth was just, it was explosive. 00:08:37.379 --> 00:08:39.620 Within a few years, they weren't just a TV show. 00:08:39.720 --> 00:08:42.179 They were a full -blown network. They were broadcasting 00:08:42.179 --> 00:08:45.059 24 hours a day via satellite. Which was revolutionary 00:08:45.059 --> 00:08:46.799 at the time. It was completely revolutionary. 00:08:47.159 --> 00:08:49.179 You have to remember, the mid-'70s, 24 -hour 00:08:49.179 --> 00:08:51.940 television just wasn't really a thing. CNN didn't 00:08:51.940 --> 00:08:55.360 even launch until 1980. The bakers were absolute 00:08:55.360 --> 00:08:58.279 pioneers of the 24 -hour news cycle, but for 00:08:58.279 --> 00:09:01.029 Jesus. And the money, I assume the money started 00:09:01.029 --> 00:09:04.330 pouring in. It was a firehose of cash, an absolute 00:09:04.330 --> 00:09:07.809 torrent. By the late 70s, the PTL club was generating 00:09:07.809 --> 00:09:10.570 $120 million annually. Wait, say that again? 00:09:10.909 --> 00:09:15.429 $120 million in 1970s money? That is... Yeah. 00:09:15.720 --> 00:09:18.340 That's the GDP of a small country. It was staggering. 00:09:18.519 --> 00:09:20.500 It's almost impossible to comprehend. And this 00:09:20.500 --> 00:09:22.240 is where we have to talk about the theology that 00:09:22.240 --> 00:09:24.539 drove this engine. Because you don't make $120 00:09:24.539 --> 00:09:26.799 million a year by telling people to sell all 00:09:26.799 --> 00:09:28.600 their possessions and live in poverty. No, you 00:09:28.600 --> 00:09:30.779 definitely don't. You make it by preaching what's 00:09:30.779 --> 00:09:32.860 known as the prosperity gospel. Right. This is 00:09:32.860 --> 00:09:34.879 a term we hear thrown around a lot. But what 00:09:34.879 --> 00:09:37.000 does it actually mean in practice? Like, how 00:09:37.000 --> 00:09:40.000 did they sell this idea to people? So the prosperity 00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:42.899 gospel or the word of faith movement essentially 00:09:42.899 --> 00:09:46.259 flips the traditional Christian script on its 00:09:46.259 --> 00:09:49.419 head. Historically, you know, Christianity often 00:09:49.419 --> 00:09:52.440 viewed wealth as a spiritual danger. It is easier 00:09:52.440 --> 00:09:54.279 for a camel to go through the eye of a needle 00:09:54.279 --> 00:09:57.580 and all that. Right. Be humble. Be poor. The 00:09:57.580 --> 00:10:00.240 prosperity gospel says the opposite. It says 00:10:00.240 --> 00:10:03.090 that God wants you to be rich. It interprets 00:10:03.090 --> 00:10:05.549 financial success and physical health as the 00:10:05.549 --> 00:10:07.950 divine seal of approval. So if you're driving 00:10:07.950 --> 00:10:09.909 a Cadillac, it's not because you're greedy. It's 00:10:09.909 --> 00:10:12.250 because you're incredibly faithful. Exactly. 00:10:12.409 --> 00:10:14.629 And the flip side of that is also true. And this 00:10:14.629 --> 00:10:17.549 is the dark part. If you are poor or if you are 00:10:17.549 --> 00:10:20.049 sick, it might be because you lack faith. Wow, 00:10:20.269 --> 00:10:22.210 that's a heavy burden to put on people. It is. 00:10:22.409 --> 00:10:25.370 But it's also a very seductive message, especially 00:10:25.370 --> 00:10:27.710 in the economic uncertainty of the late 70s and 00:10:27.710 --> 00:10:30.450 early 80s. It told people that they had control 00:10:30.450 --> 00:10:33.269 over their destiny. If they just sowed a seed, 00:10:33.490 --> 00:10:35.830 which meant, you know, donated money to the ministry, 00:10:36.090 --> 00:10:39.389 God would repay them a hundredfold. It's basically 00:10:39.389 --> 00:10:42.370 spiritual investment banking. That is a perfect 00:10:42.370 --> 00:10:45.870 way to put it. And the bakers embody this completely. 00:10:46.190 --> 00:10:50.710 Their show mixed this, this. Glitzy entertainment 00:10:50.710 --> 00:10:54.129 with down -home family values. They didn't hide 00:10:54.129 --> 00:10:57.190 their wealth. They flaunted it as proof of God's 00:10:57.190 --> 00:10:59.470 blessing. The flashy suits, the gold jewelry. 00:10:59.750 --> 00:11:01.590 The sets that looked more like the Tonight Show 00:11:01.590 --> 00:11:03.389 than a church service. It was all part of the 00:11:03.389 --> 00:11:06.409 testimony. And right in the center of this gold 00:11:06.409 --> 00:11:09.230 -plated stage was Tammy Faye. She was the heart 00:11:09.230 --> 00:11:11.490 of the entire operation. Jim was the visionary. 00:11:11.649 --> 00:11:13.490 He was the builder. He was the guy asking for 00:11:13.490 --> 00:11:16.240 the money. But Tammy was the emotional connection, 00:11:16.460 --> 00:11:19.620 and she was totally unlike any other televangelist's 00:11:19.620 --> 00:11:22.460 wife of that era. How so? What made her different? 00:11:22.779 --> 00:11:24.740 Well, think about the other major figures of 00:11:24.740 --> 00:11:28.480 that time. Mrs. Falwell, Mrs. Robertson. They 00:11:28.480 --> 00:11:30.840 were very traditional, very demure. Right. They 00:11:30.840 --> 00:11:32.700 stood in the background and smiled. They smiled. 00:11:32.740 --> 00:11:34.960 They played the piano. They were silent partners. 00:11:35.220 --> 00:11:38.320 Tammy was loud. She was 4 feet 11 inches of pure, 00:11:38.500 --> 00:11:41.200 unadulterated energy. She was on screen just 00:11:41.200 --> 00:11:43.039 as much as Jim was. And she wasn't talking about 00:11:43.039 --> 00:11:46.309 baking cookies. Oh, no. She was breaking taboos 00:11:46.309 --> 00:11:49.370 left and right. She talked openly about her marriage 00:11:49.370 --> 00:11:52.730 struggles. She talked about sex. There is a famous 00:11:52.730 --> 00:11:56.169 clip where she discusses penile implants on air. 00:11:56.350 --> 00:11:58.350 I'm sorry. She discussed what? On a Christian 00:11:58.350 --> 00:12:01.389 network? Penile implants on a Christian network 00:12:01.389 --> 00:12:05.669 in the 1980s. Her intention was to help couples 00:12:05.669 --> 00:12:08.090 who were struggling with intimacy. But you can 00:12:08.090 --> 00:12:10.330 just imagine the shockwaves that sent through 00:12:10.330 --> 00:12:12.169 the fundamentals community. I can't even imagine. 00:12:12.940 --> 00:12:15.120 She even admitted to her own prescription drug 00:12:15.120 --> 00:12:18.080 addiction and her treatment for it in 1987. She 00:12:18.080 --> 00:12:20.159 just made the private completely public. And 00:12:20.159 --> 00:12:21.860 the makeup. We have to talk about the makeup. 00:12:21.919 --> 00:12:23.419 It wasn't just a little lipstick and powder. 00:12:23.559 --> 00:12:26.720 It was a construction. It was her armor, the 00:12:26.720 --> 00:12:29.259 heavy foundation, the tattooed eyeliner, the 00:12:29.259 --> 00:12:31.679 famous spider leg eyelashes. People mocked her 00:12:31.679 --> 00:12:33.500 for it relentlessly. They called her a clown. 00:12:34.080 --> 00:12:38.259 But for her fans, that excess actually made her 00:12:38.259 --> 00:12:40.759 more accessible. It signaled that she wasn't 00:12:40.759 --> 00:12:43.320 perfect, that she was trying hard, that she was 00:12:43.320 --> 00:12:45.440 covering up insecurities just like they were. 00:12:45.620 --> 00:12:48.500 She was sort of the patron saint of being too 00:12:48.500 --> 00:12:50.779 much. She absolutely was. And that emotional 00:12:50.779 --> 00:12:54.200 rawness, that willingness to be vulnerable, led 00:12:54.200 --> 00:12:56.820 to what I consider the single most important 00:12:56.820 --> 00:12:59.940 moment of her entire career at PTL. It wasn't 00:12:59.940 --> 00:13:01.840 a sermon. It was an interview. You're talking 00:13:01.840 --> 00:13:05.379 about Steve Peters. Yes. And we really need to 00:13:05.379 --> 00:13:08.159 set the scene here. It's 1985. The AIDS epidemic 00:13:08.159 --> 00:13:11.279 is absolutely ravaging the country. And the stigma 00:13:11.279 --> 00:13:14.120 is, I mean, it's suffocating. It's hard to even 00:13:14.120 --> 00:13:16.419 explain to people who weren't there. People were 00:13:16.419 --> 00:13:19.259 terrified to touch doorknobs. Families were disowning 00:13:19.259 --> 00:13:21.820 their own children. And the church, the evangelical 00:13:21.820 --> 00:13:24.080 church, was largely leading the charge of hate 00:13:24.080 --> 00:13:26.480 and judgment. Jerry Falwell was on the record 00:13:26.480 --> 00:13:29.419 famously saying AIDS was God's judgment on homosexuals. 00:13:29.419 --> 00:13:31.340 That was the prevailing narrative in their world. 00:13:31.460 --> 00:13:33.899 And then on the PTL network, broadcasting into 00:13:33.899 --> 00:13:35.940 millions of conservative Christian living rooms, 00:13:36.120 --> 00:13:38.740 Tammy Faye brings out Steven Peters. Who was 00:13:38.740 --> 00:13:41.059 a day Christian minister living with AIDS. And 00:13:41.059 --> 00:13:43.950 he was visibly sick. He had Kaposi's sarcoma 00:13:43.950 --> 00:13:46.809 lesions on his face. And Tammy didn't recoil 00:13:46.809 --> 00:13:48.850 from him. She didn't lecture him. She didn't 00:13:48.850 --> 00:13:51.250 tell him to repent for his sins. No. She leaned 00:13:51.250 --> 00:13:53.409 in. She cried with him. They talked about his 00:13:53.409 --> 00:13:55.110 faith. They talked about the death of his partner. 00:13:55.330 --> 00:13:57.889 And then she turned to the camera and she delivered 00:13:57.889 --> 00:14:01.029 a monologue that was absolutely radical for that 00:14:01.029 --> 00:14:03.490 time and for that place. I have the quote right 00:14:03.490 --> 00:14:08.330 here. She said, How sad that we as Christians 00:14:08.330 --> 00:14:11.210 who are to be the salt of the earth, we who are 00:14:11.210 --> 00:14:13.330 supposed to be able to love everyone, are afraid 00:14:13.330 --> 00:14:16.149 so badly of an AIDS patient that we will not 00:14:16.149 --> 00:14:17.929 go up and put our arm around them and tell them 00:14:17.929 --> 00:14:20.690 that we care. And tell them that we care. It 00:14:20.690 --> 00:14:23.289 was a direct challenge to her own audience. She 00:14:23.289 --> 00:14:25.409 was essentially telling them that their fear 00:14:25.409 --> 00:14:27.830 was unchristian, that their judgment was wrong. 00:14:28.029 --> 00:14:30.490 That moment alone just separates her from the 00:14:30.490 --> 00:14:33.429 entire rest of the televangelist pack. It does. 00:14:33.919 --> 00:14:35.960 It showed that her empathy was fundamentally 00:14:35.960 --> 00:14:39.379 stronger than her dogma. And ironically, it was 00:14:39.379 --> 00:14:41.539 that empathy that would end up saving her later 00:14:41.539 --> 00:14:44.299 when the church itself turned its back on her. 00:14:44.460 --> 00:14:46.899 But before we can get to the redemption, we have 00:14:46.899 --> 00:14:48.639 to go through the fire. We have to talk about 00:14:48.639 --> 00:14:51.120 Heritage USA and the collapse. Because they didn't 00:14:51.120 --> 00:14:53.019 just build a TV studio. They built a Disneyland 00:14:53.019 --> 00:14:56.460 for Christians. Heritage USA. It was located 00:14:56.460 --> 00:14:59.799 in Fort Mill, South Carolina. And Disneyland 00:14:59.799 --> 00:15:02.269 for Christians is not an exaggeration. At its 00:15:02.269 --> 00:15:04.929 peak, it was the third most visited theme park 00:15:04.929 --> 00:15:07.590 in the entire United States, behind only Disney 00:15:07.590 --> 00:15:10.190 World and Disneyland. That is a mind -blowing 00:15:10.190 --> 00:15:12.649 statistic. It's just hard to wrap my head around 00:15:12.649 --> 00:15:15.649 what was actually there. What did you do at Heritage 00:15:15.649 --> 00:15:19.340 USA? Everything. Absolutely everything. There 00:15:19.340 --> 00:15:21.360 was a massive water park. There was a shopping 00:15:21.360 --> 00:15:23.279 mall designed to look like a Victorian village, 00:15:23.379 --> 00:15:25.600 but it was indoors and air -conditioned. There 00:15:25.600 --> 00:15:28.299 was a huge hotel called the Heritage Grand, a 00:15:28.299 --> 00:15:31.539 retreat center, replicas of the upper room chapels 00:15:31.539 --> 00:15:34.039 from Jerusalem. It was a completely immersive 00:15:34.039 --> 00:15:35.879 environment where you could be entertained and 00:15:35.879 --> 00:15:38.440 spend money without ever having to encounter 00:15:38.440 --> 00:15:42.029 the world. It sounds incredibly expensive. It 00:15:42.029 --> 00:15:44.129 was incredibly expensive to build and to run. 00:15:44.289 --> 00:15:46.389 And this is where the prosperity gospel turns 00:15:46.389 --> 00:15:48.450 into what was, for all intents and purposes, 00:15:48.730 --> 00:15:50.769 a Ponzi scheme. Okay, break that down. How did 00:15:50.769 --> 00:15:52.970 that happen? They needed a constant flow of cash 00:15:52.970 --> 00:15:55.509 to keep building. So they came up with this idea 00:15:55.509 --> 00:15:58.990 to sell lifetime partnerships. For a donation 00:15:58.990 --> 00:16:02.970 of, say, $1 ,000, you were promised three nights 00:16:02.970 --> 00:16:05.549 a year at the Heritage Grand Hotel. for the rest 00:16:05.549 --> 00:16:07.309 of your life. This sounds like a pretty great 00:16:07.309 --> 00:16:09.830 deal for the donor. It was a fantastic deal for 00:16:09.830 --> 00:16:11.470 the donor. It was a terrible deal for the ministry 00:16:11.470 --> 00:16:14.090 because it created this massive future liability 00:16:14.090 --> 00:16:17.220 that they could never possibly sustain. But the 00:16:17.220 --> 00:16:20.779 real fraud was in the math. Oh. They sold tens 00:16:20.779 --> 00:16:22.700 of thousands more of these partnerships than 00:16:22.700 --> 00:16:25.139 they had hotel rooms. They oversold the hotel 00:16:25.139 --> 00:16:27.480 by something like 800%. So they were just taking 00:16:27.480 --> 00:16:29.320 money for rooms that literally did not exist. 00:16:29.500 --> 00:16:31.919 Exactly. It was a classic Ponzi structure. They 00:16:31.919 --> 00:16:34.139 were using the new money from new partners to 00:16:34.139 --> 00:16:36.299 pay the operating costs and the promises made 00:16:36.299 --> 00:16:38.440 to the old partners. It was a house of cards. 00:16:38.799 --> 00:16:41.460 And the wind that finally blew it all down came 00:16:41.460 --> 00:16:44.610 from a very specific direction. 1987. The year 00:16:44.610 --> 00:16:47.230 everything changed. The catalyst was a sex scandal. 00:16:47.730 --> 00:16:50.490 But really, it was always about the money. In 00:16:50.490 --> 00:16:53.629 1987, it was revealed that PTL had paid $287 00:16:53.629 --> 00:16:56.690 ,000 to buy the silence of a woman named Jessica 00:16:56.690 --> 00:16:59.110 Hahn. Now, the details of this encounter are, 00:16:59.210 --> 00:17:02.870 they're very disputed. Highly disputed. Jessica 00:17:02.870 --> 00:17:05.829 Hahn was a church secretary from New York. She 00:17:05.829 --> 00:17:08.769 claimed that back in 1980, Jim Baker and another 00:17:08.769 --> 00:17:11.849 preacher, John Wesley Fletcher, drugged and raped 00:17:11.849 --> 00:17:14.480 her in a hotel room in Florida. But that wasn't 00:17:14.480 --> 00:17:17.339 Jim Becker's version of the story. No. In his 00:17:17.339 --> 00:17:20.059 later book, which was titled I Was Wrong, Jim 00:17:20.059 --> 00:17:23.039 Becker claimed he was set up and that the encounter 00:17:23.039 --> 00:17:25.319 was consensual, though he did admit it was a 00:17:25.319 --> 00:17:27.900 terrible sin that he regretted. But regardless 00:17:27.900 --> 00:17:30.059 of what actually happened in that room, it was 00:17:30.059 --> 00:17:32.160 the cover -up. The cover -up is what exploded 00:17:32.160 --> 00:17:35.640 the bomb. Yes. PTL paid her off to stay quiet. 00:17:35.819 --> 00:17:38.180 And when that payment came to light, it opened 00:17:38.180 --> 00:17:40.640 the books. And once the books were open, the 00:17:40.640 --> 00:17:43.980 financial fraud was just... And the media frenzy 00:17:43.980 --> 00:17:46.279 was unlike anything people had really seen before. 00:17:46.319 --> 00:17:48.400 This was pre -Internet, but it was wall -to -wall 00:17:48.400 --> 00:17:51.200 coverage. It was on the cover of Time, Newsweek, 00:17:51.339 --> 00:17:54.079 every single nightly news broadcast. The public 00:17:54.079 --> 00:17:56.079 was completely obsessed. And I think they were 00:17:56.079 --> 00:17:59.099 obsessed with the hypocrisy of it all. Here were 00:17:59.099 --> 00:18:01.160 these people preaching holiness and sacrifice, 00:18:01.400 --> 00:18:05.359 yet living in this absolute unbelievable opulence 00:18:05.359 --> 00:18:07.880 on the backs of, you know, grandmother's Social 00:18:07.880 --> 00:18:10.960 Security checks. And the symbol of that opulence 00:18:10.960 --> 00:18:15.819 became the doghouse. The infamous air -conditioned 00:18:15.819 --> 00:18:17.779 doghouse. You have to describe this. It's just 00:18:17.779 --> 00:18:20.980 so perfect. So at their massive lakefront home 00:18:20.980 --> 00:18:23.599 in Tega Cay, South Carolina, which was already 00:18:23.599 --> 00:18:26.069 a mansion. They had a doghouse for their pets 00:18:26.069 --> 00:18:29.130 that was fully heated in the winter and fully 00:18:29.130 --> 00:18:31.170 air conditioned in the summer. All while people 00:18:31.170 --> 00:18:33.670 were sending in their last $20 to help build 00:18:33.670 --> 00:18:36.140 God's kingdom. Exactly. It became the perfect 00:18:36.140 --> 00:18:38.700 metaphor for their complete disconnect from the 00:18:38.700 --> 00:18:41.440 reality of their followers' lives. And Tammy, 00:18:41.559 --> 00:18:43.779 bless her heart, did not help matters at all. 00:18:43.839 --> 00:18:45.740 No, she did not. When reporters cornered her 00:18:45.740 --> 00:18:48.079 and asked about their lavish lifestyle, she said, 00:18:48.140 --> 00:18:50.579 and this is a direct quote, we don't get what 00:18:50.579 --> 00:18:52.940 Johnny Carson makes, and we work a lot harder 00:18:52.940 --> 00:18:56.319 than him. Oh, Tammy, that is... That is a lack 00:18:56.319 --> 00:18:59.079 of reading the room on a galactic scale. She 00:18:59.079 --> 00:19:00.859 truly believed it, though. That's the thing. 00:19:01.019 --> 00:19:03.740 In her mind, she saw herself as an entertainer 00:19:03.740 --> 00:19:06.460 on the same level as Johnny Carson. But the public 00:19:06.460 --> 00:19:09.279 did not see it that way. They saw a grift. So 00:19:09.279 --> 00:19:12.900 the empire collapses. PTL goes bankrupt. But 00:19:12.900 --> 00:19:14.859 there's another villain in the shadows here, 00:19:14.940 --> 00:19:16.940 isn't there? Someone who kind of swooped in to 00:19:16.940 --> 00:19:20.160 pick at the bones. Jerry Falwell. And the irony 00:19:20.160 --> 00:19:22.960 here is just so thick. When the scandal first 00:19:22.960 --> 00:19:25.839 broke, Jim Backer actually entrusted the entire 00:19:25.839 --> 00:19:28.839 ministry to Jerry Falwell. He thought Falwell, 00:19:28.940 --> 00:19:30.819 a fellow preacher, would hold it together until 00:19:30.819 --> 00:19:33.500 the storm passed. That's like entrusting your 00:19:33.500 --> 00:19:37.140 sheep to the wolf. It was a fatal... Fatal miscalculation. 00:19:37.400 --> 00:19:39.619 Falwell was a strict fundamentalist. He hated 00:19:39.619 --> 00:19:42.079 the PTL style, the charismatic theology, the 00:19:42.079 --> 00:19:45.099 contemporary music, the women wearing makeup. 00:19:45.339 --> 00:19:47.660 He had called the bakers a cancer on the body 00:19:47.660 --> 00:19:50.220 of Christ. So he took over the ministry and effectively 00:19:50.220 --> 00:19:52.980 dismantled it from the inside out. There's this 00:19:52.980 --> 00:19:55.640 bizarre image of him going down the giant water 00:19:55.640 --> 00:19:58.660 slide at Heritage USA in his full suit and tie. 00:19:58.819 --> 00:20:01.220 He was essentially burying the backers in everything 00:20:01.220 --> 00:20:04.200 they had built. So Jim goes to court. And it 00:20:04.200 --> 00:20:08.460 was an absolute circus. In 1989, Jim Backer was 00:20:08.460 --> 00:20:11.119 indicted on 24 counts of fraud and conspiracy. 00:20:11.579 --> 00:20:14.920 The trial was a media sensation. And in the end, 00:20:14.960 --> 00:20:18.519 he was sentenced to 45 years in prison. 45 years. 00:20:18.619 --> 00:20:21.559 That is basically a life sentence. It was. It 00:20:21.559 --> 00:20:23.480 was eventually reduced, and he ended up serving 00:20:23.480 --> 00:20:25.859 about five years. But at that moment, when the 00:20:25.859 --> 00:20:27.960 gavel came down, it felt like the end of the 00:20:27.960 --> 00:20:30.119 world for them. And through all of this, Tammy 00:20:30.119 --> 00:20:32.759 was there. standing right outside the courthouse. 00:20:32.859 --> 00:20:35.460 We've all seen that footage, her, the tears streaming 00:20:35.460 --> 00:20:37.900 down her face, mascara running everywhere, singing, 00:20:38.000 --> 00:20:40.359 on Christ the solid rock I stand. It was just, 00:20:40.460 --> 00:20:43.160 it was pathetic, but also kind of heartbreakingly 00:20:43.160 --> 00:20:46.079 loyal. It was. She stood by him. But loyalty 00:20:46.079 --> 00:20:48.130 has a breaking point. And this brings us to the 00:20:48.130 --> 00:20:50.890 next very painful chapter of her life, the divorce. 00:20:51.150 --> 00:20:54.029 So Jim goes to prison. Tammy is left with absolutely 00:20:54.029 --> 00:20:57.829 nothing. No money, no home, no TV show. And for 00:20:57.829 --> 00:20:59.890 a while, she does try to stick it out. She did. 00:20:59.950 --> 00:21:02.109 She moved to Florida. She tried to keep a low 00:21:02.109 --> 00:21:03.890 profile, which is not something she was good 00:21:03.890 --> 00:21:07.329 at. But in 1992, she filed for divorce. And her 00:21:07.329 --> 00:21:09.309 reasoning was incredibly poignant and revealing. 00:21:09.549 --> 00:21:11.769 What did she say? She wrote a letter to her new 00:21:11.769 --> 00:21:17.779 church in Orlando. And in it, she wrote, I cannot 00:21:17.779 --> 00:21:20.779 pretend anymore. I cannot pretend anymore. That 00:21:20.779 --> 00:21:22.400 feels like the first completely honest thing 00:21:22.400 --> 00:21:24.500 she'd probably said in public in 20 years. It 00:21:24.500 --> 00:21:27.279 was the moment the mask finally slipped. The 00:21:27.279 --> 00:21:29.559 character of the happy televangelist's wife was 00:21:29.559 --> 00:21:32.279 dead. She was just a woman who was tired and 00:21:32.279 --> 00:21:35.160 broke and incredibly lonely. But she didn't stay 00:21:35.160 --> 00:21:37.200 lonely for long. And this is where the story 00:21:37.200 --> 00:21:38.900 takes a twist that feels like it was written 00:21:38.900 --> 00:21:42.180 for a soap opera. She gets remarried. To whom? 00:21:42.319 --> 00:21:45.220 To a man named Ro Messner. And who is Ro Messner 00:21:45.220 --> 00:21:47.259 in this universe? He's not just some random guy. 00:21:47.440 --> 00:21:49.380 Not at all. He is not a stranger to this story. 00:21:49.700 --> 00:21:52.200 Ro was the property developer who physically 00:21:52.200 --> 00:21:55.240 built Heritage USA. He was one of Jim's best 00:21:55.240 --> 00:21:57.539 friends in the business world. He was the guy 00:21:57.539 --> 00:21:59.720 who constructed the empire. Okay, that's already 00:21:59.720 --> 00:22:02.799 incredibly messy. But it gets even messier, doesn't 00:22:02.799 --> 00:22:05.539 it? Oh, it does. Because Ro Messner was the man 00:22:05.539 --> 00:22:09.099 who actually wrote the check for the $287 ,000 00:22:09.099 --> 00:22:12.930 in hush money to Jessica Hahn. Wait! Just to 00:22:12.930 --> 00:22:15.950 be clear... She divorced the husband who allegedly 00:22:15.950 --> 00:22:18.390 had the affair, and then she married the man 00:22:18.390 --> 00:22:20.589 who paid the hush money for that affair. That 00:22:20.589 --> 00:22:23.430 is 100 % correct. The Thanksgiving dinners must 00:22:23.430 --> 00:22:25.670 have been just a little bit awkward. You would 00:22:25.670 --> 00:22:28.809 think so. Now, to be fair to Roe, he always testified 00:22:28.809 --> 00:22:30.970 that he didn't really know the specifics of why 00:22:30.970 --> 00:22:33.369 the money was being paid, that he was just following 00:22:33.369 --> 00:22:36.410 Jim's orders to handle a problem. But yes, the 00:22:36.410 --> 00:22:39.170 optics were just wild. And the drama didn't stop 00:22:39.170 --> 00:22:41.289 with the wedding, because Roe had his own set 00:22:41.289 --> 00:22:43.269 of legal problems brewing. Of course he did. 00:22:43.470 --> 00:22:46.630 Of course. In 1996, Roe himself was convicted 00:22:46.630 --> 00:22:49.970 of bankruptcy fraud. He owed nearly $30 million 00:22:49.970 --> 00:22:53.230 to creditors, a lot of it stemming from the collapse 00:22:53.230 --> 00:22:56.329 of Heritage USA. He was sentenced to 27 months 00:22:56.329 --> 00:22:58.910 in federal prison. Let's just picture this timeline 00:22:58.910 --> 00:23:01.289 for a second. Jim Backer gets out of jail and 00:23:01.289 --> 00:23:03.869 almost immediately, Tammy's new husband, Roe, 00:23:03.869 --> 00:23:06.789 goes into jail. She essentially traded one inmate 00:23:06.789 --> 00:23:09.799 for another. It was this bizarre revolving door 00:23:09.799 --> 00:23:12.819 of incarceration. And once again, Tammy was left 00:23:12.819 --> 00:23:15.619 on the outside, alone and broke. Most people 00:23:15.619 --> 00:23:17.579 would have crumbled at that point. Most people 00:23:17.579 --> 00:23:19.059 would have changed their name and moved to a 00:23:19.059 --> 00:23:22.299 cabin in Montana and just disappeared. But this 00:23:22.299 --> 00:23:26.200 is the deep dive into Tammy Faye. She didn't 00:23:26.200 --> 00:23:30.160 hide. She pivoted. She completely reinvented 00:23:30.160 --> 00:23:32.720 herself. And she did it by leaning into the very 00:23:32.720 --> 00:23:34.559 things that people had always mocked her for. 00:23:34.940 --> 00:23:37.400 She realized that while the evangelical church 00:23:37.400 --> 00:23:39.680 had completely rejected her, there was another 00:23:39.680 --> 00:23:41.779 community out there that knew exactly what it 00:23:41.779 --> 00:23:44.680 felt like to be judged and rejected and mocked 00:23:44.680 --> 00:23:47.559 for being too much. The LGBTQ plus community. 00:23:47.859 --> 00:23:50.339 Exactly. And this is part five of our story. 00:23:50.440 --> 00:23:53.200 The unlikely emergence of a pop culture icon. 00:23:54.000 --> 00:23:57.019 In the late 90s and early 2000s, Tammy Faye Messner 00:23:57.019 --> 00:23:59.440 started appearing at gay pride marches. I remember 00:23:59.440 --> 00:24:01.420 seeing photos of this and it was just surreal. 00:24:01.579 --> 00:24:03.859 There's Tammy Faye with the full lashes and the 00:24:03.859 --> 00:24:06.180 big wig standing shoulder to shoulder with famous 00:24:06.180 --> 00:24:08.700 drag queens like Lady Bunny. Visually, it just 00:24:08.700 --> 00:24:10.299 made perfect sense. It was meeting of minds, 00:24:10.500 --> 00:24:12.779 aesthetically and spiritually. She was often 00:24:12.779 --> 00:24:14.980 referred to as the ultimate drag queen. She had 00:24:14.980 --> 00:24:17.220 the aesthetic down the camp, the drama, the exaggerated 00:24:17.220 --> 00:24:20.180 femininity. But it went so much deeper than just 00:24:20.180 --> 00:24:23.480 the look. She refused to denounce her gay fans. 00:24:23.660 --> 00:24:25.940 That was the key. She never did. She was asked 00:24:25.940 --> 00:24:28.660 about it constantly by conservative media who 00:24:28.660 --> 00:24:31.140 were just aghast. And she would always say, when 00:24:31.140 --> 00:24:33.000 we lost everything, it was the gay people that 00:24:33.000 --> 00:24:34.640 came to my rescue. They didn't judge me. They 00:24:34.640 --> 00:24:37.140 loved me. It was this reciprocal relationship. 00:24:37.359 --> 00:24:40.359 They saw a survivor in her. They saw someone 00:24:40.359 --> 00:24:42.259 who had been kicked out of the family but refused 00:24:42.259 --> 00:24:45.700 to die. And this newfound popularity led to her 00:24:45.700 --> 00:24:48.859 second career in television, but this time not 00:24:48.859 --> 00:24:52.369 on a religious network. On VH1. The surreal life. 00:24:52.630 --> 00:24:55.750 Oh my God, the surreal life. If you're too young 00:24:55.750 --> 00:24:57.130 to remember this show, you have to understand. 00:24:57.369 --> 00:24:59.990 It was the precursor to things like Celebrity 00:24:59.990 --> 00:25:03.609 Big Brother. They took a bunch of washed up celebrities 00:25:03.609 --> 00:25:05.450 and put them all in a house together to see what 00:25:05.450 --> 00:25:08.150 would happen. And the cast for season two in 00:25:08.150 --> 00:25:11.410 2004 is a pure fever dream. You have Tammy Faye 00:25:11.410 --> 00:25:13.809 Messner. You have Ron Jeremy. Who was at the 00:25:13.809 --> 00:25:16.369 time the most famous male porn star in the world. 00:25:16.509 --> 00:25:19.579 You have Vanilla Ice. You have Eric Estrada from 00:25:19.579 --> 00:25:22.000 the show Chips. You have Trishel Canatella from 00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:25.299 the original The Real World, Las Vegas. It's 00:25:25.299 --> 00:25:27.900 an insane combination of people. It sounds like 00:25:27.900 --> 00:25:30.619 an absolute disaster waiting to happen. I mean, 00:25:30.640 --> 00:25:32.900 you put a Pentecostal televangelist in a house 00:25:32.900 --> 00:25:35.160 with Ron Jeremy, that should be a bloodbath. 00:25:35.279 --> 00:25:37.619 And it's exactly what the producers wanted. They 00:25:37.619 --> 00:25:41.339 wanted conflict. They cast Tammy to be the scold. 00:25:41.960 --> 00:25:43.940 The church lady figure. Yeah. Who would judge 00:25:43.940 --> 00:25:46.259 everyone for their sinful ways. But she didn't 00:25:46.259 --> 00:25:48.740 play the role they gave her. No. She completely 00:25:48.740 --> 00:25:51.180 flipped the script again. She became the house 00:25:51.180 --> 00:25:54.359 mother. There were these incredibly tender scenes 00:25:54.359 --> 00:25:58.039 where she bonded with vanilla ice of all people. 00:25:58.440 --> 00:26:00.720 I remember that. Vanilla Ice was having this 00:26:00.720 --> 00:26:03.180 existential meltdown about his career and his 00:26:03.180 --> 00:26:05.680 reputation. And there's little Tammy Faye just 00:26:05.680 --> 00:26:08.259 comforting him and telling him it's okay. She 00:26:08.259 --> 00:26:11.420 saw Vanilla Ice and Trishel almost as her children. 00:26:11.599 --> 00:26:14.180 She understood the specific pain of being a public 00:26:14.180 --> 00:26:16.720 joke. She connected with them on the level of 00:26:16.720 --> 00:26:20.500 celebrity trauma. And it completely humanized 00:26:20.500 --> 00:26:23.000 her to a whole new generation of viewers. People 00:26:23.000 --> 00:26:25.019 watched that show and thought, wait a minute, 00:26:25.079 --> 00:26:27.460 she's not a monster. She's actually really sweet 00:26:27.460 --> 00:26:30.059 and kind of funny. She had a great sense of humor 00:26:30.059 --> 00:26:33.059 about herself by that point. She did cameos on 00:26:33.059 --> 00:26:36.019 the Drew Carey show playing Mimi Bobeck's mother. 00:26:36.299 --> 00:26:38.980 Which is just perfect casting. It's genius. She 00:26:38.980 --> 00:26:41.279 was finally in on the joke. She knew the makeup 00:26:41.279 --> 00:26:43.299 was ridiculous, but she owned it. It was her 00:26:43.299 --> 00:26:45.880 brand. And that ownership is what transformed 00:26:45.880 --> 00:26:51.019 her from a villain into a beloved icon. But there 00:26:51.019 --> 00:26:54.690 is a very dark shadow. hanging over this entire 00:26:54.690 --> 00:26:58.089 period of her reinvention. While she was filming 00:26:58.089 --> 00:27:00.150 these reality shows, while she was laughing with 00:27:00.150 --> 00:27:03.329 RuPaul in documentaries, she was dying. Yeah. 00:27:03.609 --> 00:27:06.029 This brings us to the final and really the most 00:27:06.029 --> 00:27:08.690 painful chapter of her life, her long battle 00:27:08.690 --> 00:27:11.130 with cancer. The timeline of her illness is actually 00:27:11.130 --> 00:27:12.890 quite long. People forget that she was first 00:27:12.890 --> 00:27:14.769 diagnosed with colon cancer all the way back 00:27:14.769 --> 00:27:17.589 in 1996. And there is a detail in the notes here 00:27:17.589 --> 00:27:19.750 that just really stuck with me. It says the diagnosis 00:27:19.750 --> 00:27:21.730 was delayed because she was embarrassed to see 00:27:21.730 --> 00:27:24.619 a doctor. Yes. She was having symptoms, bleeding. 00:27:25.259 --> 00:27:28.099 But she was too modest, too embarrassed to go 00:27:28.099 --> 00:27:30.559 see a male doctor. She put it off and put it 00:27:30.559 --> 00:27:33.099 off until the pain was just unbearable. It's 00:27:33.099 --> 00:27:35.720 this heartbreaking reminder of that conservative 00:27:35.720 --> 00:27:38.859 1940s upbringing that she had. Even after everything 00:27:38.859 --> 00:27:41.319 she'd been through, that shame about the body 00:27:41.319 --> 00:27:43.660 was still there. So that cancer went into remission. 00:27:43.660 --> 00:27:46.599 But then in 2004, the same year she was on The 00:27:46.599 --> 00:27:49.359 Surreal Life, she went on Larry King Live and 00:27:49.359 --> 00:27:51.329 announced that she had lung cancer. and that 00:27:51.329 --> 00:27:53.750 it was inoperable. She and Larry King had this 00:27:53.750 --> 00:27:56.869 very special ongoing relationship. She used his 00:27:56.869 --> 00:27:59.349 show almost like her new pulpit. Whenever there 00:27:59.349 --> 00:28:02.309 was a major life update, good or bad, she went 00:28:02.309 --> 00:28:04.509 to Larry. And she didn't hide the illness, just 00:28:04.509 --> 00:28:06.490 like she didn't hide the tears back in the 80s. 00:28:06.490 --> 00:28:08.809 She didn't hide the effects of chemo in the 2000s. 00:28:08.809 --> 00:28:11.430 No, she lived and she died completely in public. 00:28:11.609 --> 00:28:13.549 She shared the details of her treatment. She 00:28:13.549 --> 00:28:15.390 talked about the terrible side effects, the panic 00:28:15.390 --> 00:28:17.650 attacks. She showed the world her dramatic weight 00:28:17.650 --> 00:28:22.019 loss. The final interview. July 18, 2007. I watch 00:28:22.019 --> 00:28:23.920 this again to prep for this deep dive, and it 00:28:23.920 --> 00:28:26.960 is just, it is hard to get through. It is harrowing. 00:28:26.980 --> 00:28:29.519 She weighed 65 pounds at that point. She was 00:28:29.519 --> 00:28:31.819 just skin and bone. She couldn't eat solid foods 00:28:31.819 --> 00:28:34.299 anymore. She was surviving on pudding and ice 00:28:34.299 --> 00:28:37.500 chips. But she insisted on dying that interview. 00:28:37.839 --> 00:28:40.480 And her voice was barely a whisper. But she was 00:28:40.480 --> 00:28:42.220 still wearing the makeup. She still had the eyelashes 00:28:42.220 --> 00:28:44.519 on. It was her war paint right until the very 00:28:44.519 --> 00:28:47.539 end. Her husband, Roe, said later that she did 00:28:47.539 --> 00:28:49.480 that interview because she wanted to say a final 00:28:49.480 --> 00:28:51.859 goodbye to her fans. She knew it was the end. 00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:55.500 And just two days later, on July 20, 2007, she 00:28:55.500 --> 00:28:57.920 was gone. She died at her home in Lock Lloyd, 00:28:58.039 --> 00:29:00.839 Missouri. She was 65 years old. A very quiet 00:29:00.839 --> 00:29:04.259 end to a very, very loud life. But the conversation 00:29:04.259 --> 00:29:06.779 about her didn't stop when she died. In fact, 00:29:06.779 --> 00:29:09.619 her legacy has only grown and gotten more complex 00:29:09.619 --> 00:29:12.220 since then. It feels like we are in the middle 00:29:12.220 --> 00:29:14.579 of a Tammy Faye renaissance right now. We absolutely 00:29:14.579 --> 00:29:16.980 are. There's been a significant cultural reevaluation 00:29:16.980 --> 00:29:20.099 of her life and her story. I think we as a culture 00:29:20.099 --> 00:29:22.359 collectively realize that we treated her very 00:29:22.359 --> 00:29:25.359 unfairly. You have the 2021 film The Eyes of 00:29:25.359 --> 00:29:27.980 Tammy Faye. Jessica Chastain played her. And 00:29:27.980 --> 00:29:31.140 won the Oscar for Best Actress for it. That movie 00:29:31.140 --> 00:29:33.400 did a lot of heavy lifting in terms of changing 00:29:33.400 --> 00:29:36.019 the public narrative. It really portrayed her 00:29:36.019 --> 00:29:38.579 as a victim of the powerful, manipulative men 00:29:38.579 --> 00:29:41.779 around her. Jim Baker, Jerry Falwell. And as 00:29:41.779 --> 00:29:44.880 a woman who was really ahead of her time on social 00:29:44.880 --> 00:29:47.799 issues, was trapped in this deeply patriarchal 00:29:47.799 --> 00:29:49.960 system. And then there are the musicals. Elton 00:29:49.960 --> 00:29:52.480 John, of all people, wrote the music for a show 00:29:52.480 --> 00:29:55.160 called Tammy Faye. Which is just the most perfect 00:29:55.160 --> 00:29:58.240 pairing imaginable. Elton John loves a figure 00:29:58.240 --> 00:30:02.380 who is flamboyant and tragic. ultimately resilient, 00:30:02.619 --> 00:30:05.519 Tammy Faye is right in his wheelhouse. And I 00:30:05.519 --> 00:30:07.940 have to mention this. For any Only Alerters in 00:30:07.940 --> 00:30:10.140 the Building fans out there, there is a pig in 00:30:10.140 --> 00:30:12.539 the show named Hammy Faye Baker. Which I honestly 00:30:12.539 --> 00:30:14.460 think she would have loved. She wasn't precious 00:30:14.460 --> 00:30:16.140 about her image in the end. She wanted to be 00:30:16.140 --> 00:30:18.200 remembered with a smile, I think. So we've walked 00:30:18.200 --> 00:30:20.240 through the international falls cold, the puppet 00:30:20.240 --> 00:30:23.099 shows, the PTL empire, the fraud, the prison 00:30:23.099 --> 00:30:25.740 sentences, the reality TV house, and the tragic 00:30:25.740 --> 00:30:29.180 end. It brings us to the big question. The final 00:30:29.180 --> 00:30:30.940 assessment. When you look at the whole picture, 00:30:31.119 --> 00:30:34.720 was she a fraud or was she a saint? That is the 00:30:34.720 --> 00:30:37.180 question, isn't it? And the only honest answer, 00:30:37.220 --> 00:30:40.599 I think, is yes. Both. You can't erase the fraud. 00:30:41.000 --> 00:30:44.619 She benefited from the PTL money. She lived in 00:30:44.619 --> 00:30:47.259 the luxury that was paid for by deception. And 00:30:47.259 --> 00:30:49.140 even if she didn't know the specific accounting 00:30:49.140 --> 00:30:52.000 details of the Ponzi scheme, she knew the money 00:30:52.000 --> 00:30:54.940 was coming from somewhere and she spent it. She 00:30:54.940 --> 00:30:57.119 was complicit in a system that hurt a lot of 00:30:57.119 --> 00:30:59.500 people financially, but she was also a survivor. 00:30:59.839 --> 00:31:02.660 She survived what many would describe as domestic 00:31:02.660 --> 00:31:05.839 control. She survived a level of media shaming 00:31:05.839 --> 00:31:08.279 that would have absolutely destroyed most people. 00:31:08.650 --> 00:31:10.970 She survived the temporary loss of her children 00:31:10.970 --> 00:31:14.069 during the scandal. And through it all, she somehow 00:31:14.069 --> 00:31:17.269 maintained this capacity for love that is genuinely 00:31:17.269 --> 00:31:19.750 rare. It really makes you wonder about the nature 00:31:19.750 --> 00:31:21.950 of her ministry, what it was really all about. 00:31:22.210 --> 00:31:23.829 And that's the provocative thought I want to 00:31:23.829 --> 00:31:25.890 leave you with. When she was at the height of 00:31:25.890 --> 00:31:29.269 PTL, she had millions of viewers. She was powerful. 00:31:30.069 --> 00:31:32.009 But she was insulated. She was preaching to the 00:31:32.009 --> 00:31:34.789 choir. She was living inside a very carefully 00:31:34.789 --> 00:31:37.670 constructed bubble. But after the scandal, after 00:31:37.670 --> 00:31:40.150 it all came crashing down. After the scandal, 00:31:40.190 --> 00:31:41.930 when she was stripped of the gold and the theme 00:31:41.930 --> 00:31:44.450 parks and the mink coats, she was forced out 00:31:44.450 --> 00:31:46.650 into the real world. And that's when she was 00:31:46.650 --> 00:31:49.390 sitting in hospices with AIDS patients. That's 00:31:49.390 --> 00:31:51.869 when she was marching in parades with people 00:31:51.869 --> 00:31:55.130 that. society had completely rejected. That's 00:31:55.130 --> 00:31:57.589 when she was comforting washed -up rappers on 00:31:57.589 --> 00:32:00.210 reality TV. So you can make a pretty strong argument 00:32:00.210 --> 00:32:02.470 that her ministry was actually more effective 00:32:02.470 --> 00:32:04.930 after she lost the church. Exactly. She lost 00:32:04.930 --> 00:32:07.410 the empire, but she might have found her actual 00:32:07.410 --> 00:32:10.730 calling. She died beloved by the very communities 00:32:10.730 --> 00:32:13.509 the church she helped build had condemned and 00:32:13.509 --> 00:32:16.849 rejected. In the end, she bridged a gap that 00:32:16.849 --> 00:32:18.769 almost no one else at that time could bridge. 00:32:19.200 --> 00:32:21.819 That is a powerful and very complicated legacy. 00:32:22.140 --> 00:32:24.559 From the puppet ministry to the air -conditioned 00:32:24.559 --> 00:32:26.880 doghouse to the red carpet at the Oscars for 00:32:26.880 --> 00:32:29.299 the movie about her life, Tammy Faye Messner 00:32:29.299 --> 00:32:31.880 was a lot of things, but she was never, ever 00:32:31.880 --> 00:32:34.819 boring. Never boring. And she never, ever took 00:32:34.819 --> 00:32:37.119 off the eyelashes. Thank you for joining us on 00:32:37.119 --> 00:32:39.039 this deep dive through all the mascara and the 00:32:39.039 --> 00:32:41.339 mess. We hope you found the very human story 00:32:41.339 --> 00:32:43.220 that was hiding underneath all those headlines. 00:32:43.579 --> 00:32:46.180 And if this piqued your interest, seriously. 00:32:46.670 --> 00:32:48.930 Go find that interview with Steve Peters. It's 00:32:48.930 --> 00:32:52.210 on YouTube. It is an absolute masterclass in 00:32:52.210 --> 00:32:54.190 empathy. Until next time, stay curious.