Jim Bakker was celebrating a major television comeback in his final Instagram post just weeks before his wife announced the televangelist had died at 86.
Lori Bakker told followers on October 5 that her husband had “went home to be with the Lord this evening.” The announcement closed a long, turbulent public life that stretched from prime-time Christian television to federal prison and a late-career return to the airwaves.
The U.S. Sun reported that Bakker’s last Instagram message, posted August 23, pointed followers to the next day’s relaunch of The Jim Bakker Show and never hinted that the end was near.
He wrote with the energy of a host still selling the next broadcast.
"Tomorrow is the big day! Don’t forget to set your recorders and tune in at 1 pm ET and 5am ET every weekday!"
The show was set to return August 24 on the Impact Network, carried on DirecTV, Dish, Xfinity, and Spectrum, airing Monday through Friday. Roughly six weeks later, Lori delivered the death news. No cause or place of death was given.
In her remembrance, Lori framed both the public figure and the private husband.
"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 continued with a fuller tribute to the man she married in 1998.
"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 added that he “loved people deeply,” loved the ministry, and loved the partners who stood with him over the years. Those lines were the family’s formal goodbye. The earlier August post was still about ratings, recorders, and weekday slots.
Bakker first rose with Tammy Faye Bakker. Together they built the PTL Satellite Network and its flagship, The PTL Club. At the 1980s peak, audiences were said to reach 13 million viewers a night, and the ministry reportedly brought in millions. Heritage USA, their sprawling Christian theme park and hotel complex in South Carolina, became part of that empire.
The fall was public and severe. In 1987, Bakker admitted a sexual encounter with church secretary Jessica Hahn. Hahn said she had been sexually assaulted; money paid to her surfaced, and he resigned. In 1988 he was indicted on mail fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy charges tied to the ministry’s finances. He was convicted. A judge first handed down a 45-year sentence, later reduced to eight years. He was released on parole in 1994.
Tammy Faye divorced him in 1992 and died of colon cancer in 2007. Bakker married Lori in 1998 and launched The Jim Bakker Show in 2003, rebuilding a smaller platform after the PTL wreckage.
Even in the comeback years, trouble followed the brand. The year before a 2021 legal deal, Bakker suffered a stroke. In 2021, he and Morningside Church Productions Inc. settled a lawsuit accusing them of false claims that a product called Silver Solution could cure COVID-19. The settlement provided $156,000 in refunds to customers.
That record sits beside the pioneer label Lori used. Federal fraud convictions, a prison term, a high-profile sex scandal, a divorce, a stroke, and a COVID-era product settlement are not side notes. They are the documented arc between the 13-million-viewer nights and the final Instagram hype for another weekday slot.
By August, he was again telling viewers to set their recorders. By October 5, his wife was announcing he had died at 86. The last message he gave his audience was not a farewell. It was a promo.
American religious television has always mixed genuine faith, real ministry, hard commerce, and human failure in the same broadcast hour, Bakker’s life put every part of that mix on camera to the end.
