she had passed away "peacefully" in her home late Friday, July 20. She was 65.
Messner, who battled drug addiction and later inoperable cancer, died Friday morning, just hours after she told the Cable News Network’s Larry King on Thursday, July 20, that she
was looking forward to Heaven.
"I believe when I leave this Earth because I love the Lord, I am going straight to Heaven," Messner told King in an interview on CNN’s Larry King Live. "She died peacefully in her home. A family service was held at a graveside in a private cemetery where Tammy’s ashes have been interred," said a family statement monitored by BosNewsLife.
"Tammy’s family is grateful for your prayers and very appreciative of the privacy afforded to them at this time," the statement added. Messner recently posted a message on her Web site
saying she had withered to 65 pounds (30 kg) and that doctors had decided to stop treatment,
leaving her fate "up to God and my faith."
COLON CANCER
Messner was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1996 and announced in 2004 it had spread. ith her former husband Jim Bakker, Tammy Faye became a household name in America through the Praise The Lord organization (PTL) that he founded in 1974.
Their television evangelical empire brought in close to $130 million annually at its height in the 1980s and reached 13 million homes daily. Tammy Faye was a fixture of her first husband’s ministry, her heavy mascara running riot as she tearfully beseeched TV viewers to open their hearts to Jesus.
She also used her charisma to ask viewers to open their wallets to PTL. The ministry’s empire included Heritage USA, a Christian theme park in South Carolina.
CRASHING DOWN
However later finance and sex scandals brought it all crashing down after the Internal Revenue Service started investigating whether the Bakkers were illegally using their tax-exempt ministry
to pay for an opulent lifestyle that mushroomed to include several homes, servants, luxury cars, jewels, furs and an air-conditioned doghouse.
After trial in 1989, Bakker was convicted of fraud and conspiring to commit fraud and sentenced to 45 years in a federal prison. He eventually served only five years of that sentence and was released on parole for good behavior. In 1992 Bakker and his wife Tammy Faye were divorced at her request.
They later asked forgiveness for past mistakes, both remarried, and continued evangelical activities. (With BosNewsLife’s Stefan J. Bos and reporting from the USA).
