Transcript for Televangelist Jim Bakker has secret sexual encounter with a follower: Part 4
It’s a woman named Jessica Hahn. Jim had a sexual encounter, evidently, with Jessica Hahn, and she was a secretary. It was easy to conceive of how, uh, Jimmy Bakker would have fallen from grace. And who had ever have suspected or imagined it? Of a little kewpie doll kid like Jim Bakker that there would be anything immoral in his life. Jim was never perceived as a womanizer. Never, ever heard a story of Jim being inappropriate with anybody. I’m not sure anybody wanted to be inappropriate with Jim. And so this was so incredible. Was there a sexual incident with Mr. Bakker that took place? That — that’ll be all revealed when — when they give their statement. Money being paid? In 1980, Jessica Hahn was 21 years old. She was a church secretary from Long Island. She idolized Jim Bakker. She bought her first black and white television just so that she could watch his show every day. You watched the “Ptl” on T.V. What did you think of Jim and Tammy Bakker? Well, I thought they were the closest thing to heaven. You know, being brought up in a Christian home and being brought up to love god, I loved what Jim and Tammy were doing. And I noticed a real miracle. Your hair started to grow again. Oh, it grows. This must be a sigh. Honey, that way you don’t have to look for a new girl for the new year. You’ve got one. Bakker had a sidekick at that time named John Wesley Fletcher, who was another preacher who was trying to curry favor with him to get on his show. If you got on the Bakker show, it was like a Phil Donahue show. You were famous. They were thekardashians of the, you know, of the gospel in a way. And Fletcher would come through town at least once a year and preach a revival in Hahn’s church on Long Island. And he would come through massapequa and developed an acquaintanceship with Jessica Hahn, who he occasionally asked to babysit his children. Fantastic people. Please welcome them to “Ptl,” John Wesley Fletcher and his wife Shirley. ?????? But Fletcher was also becoming notorious at “Ptl” for making sexual advances towards young men on the “Ptl” staff. And so his position at “Ptl” was becoming increasingly precarious. The number one thing that I live for, brother Jim, is to see the souls of men saved. John Wesley Fletcher and Bakker were in Florida doing a telethon, and Fletcher called Jessica Hahn and said, “Would you like to come to Florida and meet Jim Bakker?” So he brings his former babysitter down to the sand key resort with promises to meet her hero, her idol, Jim Bakker. This is like meeting Mick jagger of, you know, the evangelical movement to her. What did he represent to you would be the reason for you going down there? I went with the intention of being, again, in the presence of some people I had admired my whole Christian life. But there were never any suggestions at all that anything at all would go on down there. No. Again, I went with the intention of being a part of something great. She claimed that she really had no idea what was going to happen until she got in the hotel room with John Wesley Fletcher and Jim Bakker. The way Jessica Hahn later described her sexual encounter with Jim Bakker sounds very much like rape. She later told me that she doesn’t really feel comfortable talking about it in those terms. But she also clearly didn’t believe that it was consensual. All I could tell you is it certainly was not an affair, okay? And it was certainly not something that I would ever want to go through again. Her version is pretty horrific. And in today’s “Me too” movement, it probably could’ve resulted in criminal charges. Now if you believe Jim Bakker’s version of it, it was a consensual liaison. Once it started, she didn’t know how to get out of the room. She didn’t know what to do or how to make it stop. And Fletcher, he then came in, and he said that you had to do the same thing with him or — that’s too hard for you at this point to say? Yeah, I really prefer not to. When you got back home, I guess there was no thoughts of calling the police or reporting anything? I — first of all, I was not in my right mind. I was unable to think clearly. I just immediately went into a shell. I thought that this was going to be my secret for the rest of my life and that I should never speak of this ever. Initially, both Jessica Hahn and Jim Bakker wanted to keep this quiet. Jessica was deeply hurt that Bakker didn’t contact her afterwards. Didn’t apologize. No one bothered to say, “Jessica, we messed up. We slipped. We fell. We’re not perfect. We realize we hurt you.” Nobody bothered to do that. I talked to her on the phone within the next few hours, 24 hours, 40 hours, I’m not sure, over the next couple of days. I apologized. I told her I had repented. I’d asked god’s forgiveness. I’d ask her forgiveness. She claimed she wasn’t in it for the money. She did later take the money. Bakker personally directed the payment of “Ptl” hush money to church secretary Jessica Hahn to cover up her sexual liaison with Bakker. Bakker said, “I hate to give them a dime, but do what you have to do to get it solved.” Hahn received $265,000 in “Ptl” funds, covered up by phony invoices for the production of “Ptl’s” daily passion play. And someone heard that Jim Bakker had this fling. We heard this suggestion that we needed to talk to Jessica Hahn. ??? ???Come, come, come, come, come along now,???
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
