The Scandalous Rise & Fall of Jerry Falwell Jr. | Documentary

we are so proud of our students here at liberty and it's just such an honor to be able to serve alongside them and we try to teach good family values and good morals jerry falwell jr was born into money and power and preached fundamentalist views as the president of an evangelical university in lynchburg virginia he built a billion dollar empire and demanded high standards from his employees and students while breaking every rule in the book behind the scenes as he and his wife lived a secret double life falwell is now saying about the sex scandal involving his wife and a young man who falwell and his wife allegedly met when he was a miami pool boy michael cohen claimed he helped bury personal photographs for jerry falwell jr before the evangelical leader backed trump hmm sounds like black man [Music] [Music] the world has gone crazy as blood fills the streets steal kill destroy the cycle repeats but we cannot give in to these destructive forces that minute digest like a meal with five [Music] [Applause] [Music] and don't you dare let go this is the rise and fall of one of the most prominent evangelical leaders in the united states jerry falwell jr he he enjoyed watching we cannot talk about jerry falwell jr without mentioning his father jerry falwell senior an american religious leader televangelist and founder of the moral majority despite his grandfather and father being atheist jerry senior devoted his life to serving the god of christianity thanks to his deeply religious mother after accepting jesus christ a young jerry senior turned down an opportunity to play professional baseball and transferred from lynchburg college to baptist bible college in springfield missouri after his graduation in 1956 jerry senior returned to his hometown and founded thomas road baptist church in lynchburg at the age of 22. soon after jerry senior started a radio ministry called the old time gospel hour it's time now for the old time gospel hour with jerry falwell good morning and i welcome you to the morning service at the thomas road baptist church in lynchburg virginia i'm jerry falwell pastor here and it's a real joy every sunday morning over this station at this time isn't it grand to be a christian half a year later the program began appearing on tv eventually attracting tens of millions of regular viewers every week following his success jerry senior took the first step closer to his vision of a christian educational system for evangelical youth jerry senior himself often said that his purpose in life was to train young champions for christ jerry absolutely loved scaring christian parents by saying their children would be brainwashed in liberal schools if they chose a liberal school over a christian college and what would be better than having his own conservative religious school to keep the youth on a righteous path i don't think we need any more why not a martin luther king day i just feel that there are other black americans and the corporate body of black americans who are due honor more than one recent individual about whom there's a great question mark even to this morning what is the question mark uh the question mark is that uh so far all the records on him are sealed and neither you tom nor i really know what they're going to talk about his personal character and his personal morality and his personal life he may be as clean as billy graham but we don't know that because the records are sealed so after campaigning against the civil rights activist martin luther king jr in the 1950s and 1960s jerry senior founded lynchburg christian academy in 1967 described by the lynchburg news as a private school for white students a few years later in 1971 it was jerry's pride and joy and realizing those white students would later need somewhere to go to university he founded liberty university which would become one of the biggest christian universities in the world needless to say students at liberty university follow conservative evangelical views with a mission statement that reads quote to train up leaders who use their god-given gifts and abilities to transform the world for good end quote upon enrollment each student has to sign an honor code called the liberty way a 22-page document describing what you can and cannot do at the campus or outside of it the guidelines prohibit such things as drinking alcohol pre-marital intimate relations cohabitation immoral entertainment and of course same-gender relationships a passage in the liberty way reads quote sexual relations outside of a biblically ordained marriage between a natural-born man and a natural-born woman are not permissible at liberty university end quote this section however was very recently revised to include not just homosexual relationships but also transgender or non-binary identification the addition states quote while mental thoughts temptations and states of mind are not regulated by the liberty way statements and behaviors that are associated with lgbtq states of mind are prohibited for example romantic displays of affection with a member of the same sex example hand-holding kissing dating etc and actions confirming denial of biological birth sex example asking to be referred to by pronouns inconsistent with one's birth sex using restrooms and changing facilities reserved for persons other than one's birth sex etc are prohibited and it's not just that the school prohibits same-sex relationships and any other gender identity than cis they even have a conversion therapy program a dangerous pseudo-scientific practice that seeks to change a person's sexual or gender identity and often results in negative mental health outcomes in a 2009 senior thesis study called the preliminary assessment and incidence of sexual identity issues at liberty university a student created a survey for the liberty university student care office to use in the process of their counseling methods a few of the 71 questions included the following rate the degree of attraction you experience to the opposite sex awareness of same-sex feelings same-sex sexual behavior i have little desire to be around most heterosexuals true or false and i accept but would not say i am proud of the fact that i am definitely homosexual true or false it's not a big surprise that the lgbtq plus community is not welcomed at liberty university considering its founder and leader for almost four decades jerry senior was known for his attacks against the gay community and said that aids is not god's punishment for homosexuals but god's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals ex-students of liberty university have opened up about the constant fear and anxiety on campus according to a former student andrew han who is openly gay lgbtq plus students were told they could not have families or ever be happy because of their sexual orientation another former student tyler milton described an incident where one individual was expelled just because of holding hands and possibly kissing a same-sex fellow student and still according to a former employee of the university laquan mclaren who filed a discrimination lawsuit against liberty his supervisor once told him that quote homophobia did not exist at liberty university and that he and other members of the lgbtqia community should be happy that liberty allowed them to be there end quote the university might allow lgbtq plus individuals to attend the school and accept their money but they do not have the same rights as other students while jerry senior led liberty university there were two things in the 1970s that really got under his skin good evening in a landmark ruling the supreme court today legalized abortions the majority in cases from texas and georgia said that the decision to end a pregnancy during the first three months belongs to the woman and her doctor not the government one being roe versus wade the decision that legalized abortion in january of 1973 and was overturned almost 50 years later the second was that by 1975 the ford administration began trying to deny segregated schools their tax-exempt status due to the school's perpetuating segregation jerry denounced this and called it an intervention against christian schools this outrage is what led jerry senior to create a conservative lobbying group in 1979 called the moral majority which was described as being pro-life pro-traditional family pro-moral and pro-american and was meant to aid the u.s conference of catholic bishops protesting legal abortion the organization played a significant role in the election of republican ronald reagan as president in 1980 by delivering two-thirds of the white evangelical voters the group was disbanded nine years later in 1989 after jerry senior declared the moral majority had achieved its goal all this time since 1958 jerry senior had been married to his wife masal who often publicly supported her husband throughout his career the couple had three children together a daughter named jeannie and two sons jonathan and the main subject of today's episode jerry falwell jr jerry jr was born on father's day june 17 1962 in lynchburg virginia it has been said that life in the fallwell house basically orbited around jerry senior and his two sons did whatever they could to get more of their father's affection than the other jonathan was the well-behaved and sociable son who always followed the rules meanwhile jerry was withdrawn rebellious and did not appear very religious and yet he was his father's favorite jerry himself once said quote my dad and i were thick as thieves he didn't see eye to eye with jonathan end quote apparently the father and son had an interesting hobby together the two jerry's found it hilarious to play jackass style pranks on people according to jerry's seniors ghost rider mel white the patriarch once put a live baby alligator in his wife's bathtub and loved terrorizing his students at liberty by speeding through the campus with his suv in turn jerry jr once picked up roadkill and threw it in a friend's car almost causing everyone inside to have a heart attack so while jerry jr was a daddy's boy jonathan got along much better with his mother here's jonathan sharing about his mother before her funeral when i was in kindergarten i really didn't want to go to school and i would not go unless she went with me and so she would actually come and she would sit in the back of the classroom masal was a hard-line baptist and did not exactly like jerry's more loose lifestyle as jerry himself later said jonathan was someone maysel could control her firstborn however was not nor was her husband at least to a certain point jerry senior would have wanted to do many things including traveling the world but maisel was all about that small town preacher's life because divorce was completely out of the question jerry senior found other ways to relax at home which included sometimes drinking a whole bottle of nyquil as a loophole for maisel's rule of no alcohol in the house it was his father's behavior that taught jerry jr that one's private life does not have to align with their public persona as you can guess jerry jr attended his father's schools graduating from lynchburg christian academy in 1980 before obtaining a bachelor of arts in religious studies and history at liberty university in 1984. jerry's classmates later remembered him as awkward and shy shutting down a bit because of the constant pressure of being like his father jerry was not the most religious person before his studies but in his own words became a true christian in college jerry understood he did not have to follow every single evangelical rule simply believing was all he needed to get into heaven after liberty jerry felt he needed to get out of fundamentalist lynchburg and so he entered the university of virginia law school in charlottesville there he lived like any other student playing basketball drinking alcohol and not attending church if anyone asked about religion jerry would say that was his dad's thing not his during his second year 23 year old jerry visited home and happened to run into a young woman named becky tilly becky was 18 years old and a freshman at liberty university and jerry was smitten he asked her out and on their first date jerry took becky to see terminator at a drive-in cinema due to the r rating the film was actually on the list of prohibited movies for liberty university students however soon after she began dating jerry becky dropped out of school and took a job as a waitress in lynchburg and whenever she had free time becky traveled to charlottesville to be with her boyfriend jerry while jerry senior was very happy for his son and absolutely loved becky masol was not thrilled about the relationship it didn't matter that becky came from a rich devout baptist family nor the fact that her father was a jerry senior fan in maisel's eyes all those good qualities were pointless just because the tilly family came from north carolina and maisel referred to them as hicks jerry who was not going to end his relationship with becky felt even more distant from his mother and spent more time with his father after graduating from uva law school in the spring of 1987 jerry returned home and began working as a commercial real estate developer and private sector lawyer that same year jerry and becky married and moved to a farm in the foothills of the blue ridge mountains to put some distance between them and the fall wells but in the end jerry found himself just down the hall from his father after jerry senior finally revealed a shocking secret in the summer of 1988 the father and son had a meeting during which jerry's senior admitted his pride and joy liberty university was on the brink of bankruptcy at first jerry had a hard time understanding how that was even possible the school had about 4 500 students and while the tuition costs back then are unknown today a student pays an average of 23 800 annually excluding accommodation supplies and other costs in addition construction for a new 12 000 seat football stadium and a 9547 seat basketball arena were about to start in 1988. why were these projects approved if there was no money well jerry senior had borrowed money and we're not talking about small amounts but millions the problem was that jerry senior could not pay that money back especially because revenues for the old-time gospel hour were not what they used to be at the time the christian broadcasting industry was in crisis after the scandal of jim and tammy faye baker who had built an empire with their praise the lord or ptl tv show that came crashing down after jim was charged with sa accusations jim baker actually turned to jerry senior and asked him to take over ptl until the scandal blew over but what cherry senior didn't know was that ptl was also deeply in debt bleeding two million dollars a month in the end at a press conference in may 1987 jerry senior revealed he was seizing the television ministry because the bakers were not fit to lead ptl anymore and he told jim to quote acknowledge his homosexual problems the following video i'm going to play for you shows jerry senior leading a ptl service but this isn't your normal church tv service in it jerry speaks quickly and attempts to tell the audience in a confusing manner that ptl's lifetime partners would not be receiving what they paid for before being yelled at by an audience member ptl's lifetime partners were people who paid one thousand dollars or two thousand six hundred and eight dollars in today's money in exchange for three nights per year at one of heritage usa's two hotels located in the theme park heritage usa was founded by jim and tammy fate baker who saw it as the christian disney world and it sat on 2300 acres but jim baker oversold the tickets to these lifetime partners while jerry jr was trying to figure out how to help his father jerry senior can be seen in this video stumbling through what he was court ordered to tell the audience by a federal judge here's jerry senior from july 1987 on the set of ptl thank you frank and what you've just heard sounds i'm sure like a lot of legal semantics to you and in fact it is that but i want to you just to look in and watch in as i go out with our live audience here today at the ptl show as we try to communicate what you just heard really really means good morning you've just been listening to something that i know bores you but it is necessary and yesterday after we went off the air i took the time to come out and tell you what the frank gamble announcement from the federal court means and some people said hey why don't you do that with a television audience it's a sensitive thing but i never have been afraid of sensitive things and so i thought i would take just a few moments before we go into the positive side of our program to share with you what frank was just saying most of you know that there that we are in chapter 11 filing with a federal court seeking their protection and assistance in solving what have been some very insoluble problems for us here one we have about a 72 million dollar indebtedness that is manageable and workable and we're committed to paying it we just can't pay it all at one time uh secondly we have a we have a major problem with partnerships we have sold as best we can determine somewhere between 100 million and 180 million dollars worth of those partnerships that 100 to 180 million dollars was called a lifetime partnership and was intended to be a contribution to the ministry for which the ministry again as a contribution a gift provided four days and three nights in the heritage grant and if the tower if and when the towers are finished and we're committed to doing that uh the same thing there the problem is that we have oversold by 325 percent that is we have 3.25 families waiting per room per night forever and that's what the towers finished it's like 600 percent without the towers and by god's grace we plan to finish the towers but they're not finished now now what i've just said to you is a mathematical impossibility doesn't work and so we needed someone more powerful than we to define and describe for us what really exists because there are some persons who believe they were not making a contribution for a lifetime membership but they were rather buying a time share now there's a big difference if there are 180 million dollars in time shares purchased then there's a 180 million dollars of indebtedness for this ministry on top of the 70 million i just mentioned and clearly that's the end of the ministry as far as i could determine uh i don't know how we would repay that most of the partners we deal with don't believe they own the ministry they believe they have contributed to it gave it to the lord and feel that this came from my heart to god's heart and i'm trusting the ministry now to do for us what is ethical and morally right and so forth and our desire is i i'm sorry sir this is a church service sir thank you we have a few like that we have a few here we have one or two like that here but thank god amen thank you for your support amen [Music] [Applause] [Music] there is a lot more in the ptl story but the point is that liberty university's primary funding source had taken a hit because of the scandal as a result jerry falwell senior was on the verge of losing liberty university his church and the tv show he desperately needed his son's help and so jerry jr became a general counsel for liberty and its related organizations describing that time later by saying quote every day was survival i was constantly on the phone with lenders and donors trying to get enough money to meet payroll end quote after fully realizing the seriousness of the situation jerry jr talked sense into his father and made him give up the old time gospel hour which was only losing money from this point forward jerry jr was basically the one making the decisions while his father remained as the figurehead for the university due to his almost reclusive nature the arrangement suited jerry jr perfectly he would stay in his office rarely accepting jerry senior's invitation to join him and chief of staff mark demas for lunch eventually jerry jr's hard work paid off and around the mid-1990s liberty university was out of the deep financial hole jerry senior later praised his son in his autobiography by writing quote god sent him to me just in time he is more responsible humanely speaking for the miraculous financial survival of this ministry than any other single person end quote there were others who helped in saving liberty but little jerry as he was called on campus was seen as the miracle worker and the future of the school jerry senior began to give his son more and more responsibility at liberty and at the turn of the millennium it was time to talk about succession while jeannie became a doctor and would not play a part in her father's operations jerry senior had big plans for his two sons jonathan was already the executive pastor of thomas road church and jerry senior wanted him to inherit his mega church in turn jerry who is not that religious but good with numbers would become president of liberty university in 2003 jerry was officially named his father's successor by liberty's board of trustees according to jerry himself he was not excited about his father's plans and actually hoped somebody else more suitable would appear during the years and take the job but the truth is around this time jerry senior was already 70 years old so there wasn't much time left to create any plan b's which proved true very soon on may 15 of 2007 at around 10 45 pm jerry falwell senior was found unresponsive in his office all efforts to revive jerry senior were in vain and he was pronounced dead at 12 40 pm at lynchburg general hospital he had suffered a massive heart attack three days later jerry falwell jr held his first speech in front of 15 000 people at liberty's graduation all of a sudden jerry and becky falwell became a power couple in the world of christianity they were celebrities jerry did claim that he was scared to death at the beginning of his new job saying quote it was the worst three months of my life there was so much pressure on me to become somebody i wasn't i'd wake up each day saying how am i going to do this end quote but no matter how much jerry claimed he hated the responsibilities of a president of the university and the difference between his own lifestyle and liberty values he did very much enjoy the power and privilege of his position including the financial side jerry may have lacked his father's charisma but he had the skills to turn liberty into a money-making machine all jerry had to do was to put up a proper christian image for the public and behind the scenes he could continue doing whatever he pleased and so jerry and becky became the first family of liberty and made everybody call them as much jerry demanded the utmost respect and loyalty from the staff and students and even made the administration take a so-called loyalty test this loyalty test was a two-question survey that detailed if they were liberal or very conservative while jerry's own actions did not always match the standards as you will later hear while jerry had transformed liberty's finances while under his father's administration he was not going to stop there next jerry transformed liberty's distance learning program by giving up old vhs tapes that were sent to the students and instead created online courses on paper the change was a huge success by 2010 the university had 50 000 remote students bringing annual revenues to 420 million dollars but behind those numbers were about 300 phone recruiters also known as admissions representatives whose responsibility was to call people who had registered on websites for information about higher education online the idea itself may not sound too bad but liberty recruiters work for low pay under intense and constant pressure having no more than 45 seconds between calls according to one former employee a highly motivated goal for each recruiter is eight new students a day meaning altogether 2400 new students across the entire office if a recruiter cannot sign up more than four new students daily they may be subject to disciplinary action and it's not just the working conditions that are questionable the recruiters are also told not to mention liberty's christian orientation to potential students and only give quotes on a per-credit basis not per course nevertheless since jerry became president of the university enrollment increased from 27 000 to over 94 000 online students and from 9 600 to more than 15 000 residential students in 10 years liberty's listed assets grew from just over 259 million dollars to 2.5 billion but did that money really go where it was supposed to while liberty's financial situation may have looked better than ever at first glance at the same time jerry mismanaged the school's money in every possible way while accumulating himself a net worth of 100 million dollars by 2019 at least five falwell family members including jerry's two sons and their wives were on liberty's payroll the university also had an over 30 million dollar deal with a construction firm owned by a close fallwell friend and jerry's sons partnered with businessmen who relied on their contacts with liberty over the span of a decade family members of liberty university executives in the fallwell family received over nine million dollars which is more than problematic because of the fact that liberty is a non-profit institution and receives more than 770 million dollars annually from government sources this meant that taxpayer money was used not just for jerry's non-academic business ventures and his family members salaries but also for his free time activities it was well known that jerry liked to use liberty's security for his private purposes even having them patrol his farm as security for his family he also used a university donor's yacht for family vacations and made many private trips with liberty's jet what led up to you saying i'm gonna give my plane and i'm gonna get you out there um rashad called the week before the show's airs on a monday so shaw called me on a wednesday night and asked if i knew anybody that had a private plane that he could rent to transport his family to dancing with the stars in la and liberty has a jet and so i talked to jerry about it and asked him if it would be possible for liberty to help provide the plane to get them out to la when she asked me about it i felt like it was something if he didn't charge us anything for commencement last year so i thought well here's a way we can pay him back and also help his parents who are wonderful people and they were they were absolutely elated even though the university explained in 2019 that jerry simply used the university charter jet to fly to his annual physical in miami it also conveniently meant the president did not have to reimburse the cost of the trips the university might have thought otherwise if they had known their president did not just see his doctor in miami but also engaged in very unbiblical activities now there are different versions of the affair and how it played out the falwell's account does not always overlap with giancarlo granda's account but one thing seems to be sure it all began during the time becky was a stay-at-home mother raising three children and received very little attention from jerry who was working often when becky then became the first lady of liberty university and earned new responsibilities she wanted to reinvent herself so becky threw out her old clothes and bought new ones in addition to hiring a personal trainer before long becky noticed the boys at the liberty campus were looking at her in a way her husband had not looked at her for a long time and it was intoxicating by 2012 the fallwells had been married for 25 years and becky felt like she had missed something it was that feeling that eventually led becky to what she described as her biggest regret in life around december 2012 jerry noticed something was wrong his wife was oddly quiet and distant when jerry finally asked what was going on becky confessed she had been having an affair with a 20 year old pool boy that they met at a hotel in miami beach 10 months earlier a man named giancarlo granda back in march jean carlo had approached the falwells at the pool and had a conversation with both of them but jerry had been unaware of the fact the pool boy ended up slipping becky his number and she was hooked from the first message as becky herself later told vanity fair quote i had someone i could talk to it's that dopamine rush all of a sudden this young handsome fella starts texting you and giving you attention and you're like wow this is kind of nice end quote over time the text messages that had started as innocent flirting became more and more graphic meanwhile becky and jerry kept meeting john carlo together talking about business and possibly buying property in miami giancarlo suggested he and jerry should get into the hotel business and the liberty president didn't seem to think it was a great idea the falwells liked miami there nobody recognized them it was an escape from the evangelical world and of course becky enjoyed spending time in florida because of her new crush one day when jerry was going around and checking out real estate becky and jean carlos shared a bed for the first time then in august of 2012 jerry placed a 4.6 million dollar offer on a building that housed an italian restaurant liquor store and a cheap 120 bed hostel ironically the sign on the front door of the hostel that was said to have a party tropical theme red no soliciting fundraising politics salesman religion basically nothing that jerry falwell represented at this point there were already a million questions about what on earth was going on with jerry and becky somehow a 20 year old pool boy had convinced them to buy a shabby hostel after knowing the couple for a few months one could say that the falwells were a bit lost in the social life of miami where they weren't surrounded by their religious friends and acquaintances becky herself said that she simply lost control trying to navigate the new life she was now experiencing on the other hand according to jean carlo jerry made the offer on the property so soon because jerry was already a willing participant in a relationship that had started as his wife's affair giancarlo later said quote he was aware from day one of our relationship and he did in fact watch giancarlo's version of how the affair started is quite different compared to that of the falwells according to him becky was noticeably drunk on the day they met for the first time and towards the end of jean carlo's shift asked if he would like to go back to her hotel room the 20 year old agreed but then becky added that her husband would like to watch them in the act giancarlo said he initially backed off but becky kept insisting jerry would not do anything just sit in the corner and watch all this while liberty university's honor code prohibited intimate relations outside a biblically ordained marriage between what they call a natural-born man and a natural-born woman not to mention that becky allegedly also had an affair with a former liberty student and band mate of her son despite the strict policies against employees having inappropriate relationships with students interestingly in september of 2012 the falwells brought jean carlo to lynchburg to listen to trump's speech there is even a picture showing giancarlo shaking hands with trump at liberty university as becky and jerry stood in the background somehow the first family of liberty felt comfortable enough to bring their secret out in the open in front of their religious supporters so in becky's version of events she confessed to the affair in december of 2021 one would think that if jerry really didn't know about what his wife was doing behind his back he would have canceled the hostile deal but instead he invested 1.8 million dollars and he and becky became hostile owners in february of 2013. the fallwells claimed that giancarlo then apologized to jerry who partly blamed himself and began to work out and take testosterone supplements to be worthy of becky again still becky was not ready to give up what she had with jean carlo the two continued to see each other for several years with becky claiming they stopped being intimate in 2014 while jean carlos said the intimacy continued for seven years nonetheless around this time the first signs of the fallwell's downfall began to appear in 2015 the fallwells got into trouble with john carlo's friend jesus fernandez jr and his father jesus senior who felt that jerry had forgotten their part in helping them buy the hostel in miami as jerry refused to give the two men the cut he allegedly had promised the fernandez's sued the falwells sending them into a panic what would be an easier way for their dark secret to be revealed than a lawsuit and then there was a detail becky had forgotten to tell jerry she and jean carlo had made some intimate films together in a miami hotel room shortly after the revelation becky's lawyers dropped another bomb the fernandez's apparently had gotten their hands on some topless pictures of her that jerry had taken on their farm years earlier the outwardly decent christian couple were terrified their hypocrisy would be exposed to the world they needed to act fast and hide their true nature this is where trump's fixer and long time friend of the fall wells michael cohen steps in cohen had actually introduced the fall wells to trump a few years earlier in 2011 when he invited the first family of liberty to a private meeting with evangelical leaders at trump tower from that day forward cohen was close with jerry and becky so he was happy to help cohen made some phone calls and threatened to involve the fbi if necessary it worked the photos of becky were never published and the lawsuit ended in a settlement cohen later remembered this favor as he wrote in his memoir quote in good times i would call in this favor not for me but for trump at a crucial moment on his journey to the presidency end quote and so it happened that in 2016 despite everybody thinking that jerry would support ted cruz he instead shocked everyone by endorsing donald trump and even congratulated trump for living a life of loving and helping others as jesus taught in the great commandment well anybody can see from miles away that something along the lines of quid pro quo happened here both jerry and cohen denied that this was the case interestingly liberty's i.t chief was also hired by kohin to manipulate online polls in his boss's favor before the presidential campaign but the biggest issue here was the fact that jerry's endorsement of trump was a violation of the johnson amendment which prohibits all nonprofit organizations from endorsing or opposing political candidates despite him being the president of a non-profit organization an evangelical school for that matter jerry publicly supported and lavished trump boosting him into becoming the republican nominee and an evangelical idol just like his father helped do with ronald reagan in 1980 in 2017 jerry was even appointed by trump to lead a new task force to overturn federal regulation over higher education a major part of these regulations was created by the obama administration to among other things protect students from fraud and lower student loan default rates all while jerry's own school students had high levels of student debt and found it difficult to repay their federal loans after graduation this is a good point to mention that jury himself was making 900 thousand dollars a year as president of liberty but while jerry may have been proud of his relationship with trump often even bragging about having him on speed dial and enjoying the fact that the trump campaign promoted him as the president of liberty university the endorsement was one of his biggest mistakes as jerry himself later said quote trump was the reason they came after me as hard as they did end quote and so i now understand why you guys aren't so interested in politics when i was your age i couldn't i could i mean i didn't have any control about i mean i felt like the old guys with ties and the older people with gray hair controlled everything anyway that there was nothing i could do but then i started working i started looking at my paycheck and how much came out every week that i had earned and then i started listening to rush limbaugh on the radio about 1992 and i started to realize that my future depended on me taking an interest in what was happening in the country we're living in a world where in the last seven days politicians have advocated killing babies after they were born putting up 90 tax on the rich saying we have to have sympathy for isis proposed confiscating all of our guns and also had a sitting governor exposed wearing a kkk outfit the same week he promoted infanticide that's the world that you guys are going to have to live in i'm 56 i'll probably be gone before it gets really bad but you got but you guys are going to be here for a long time and you've got to make sure you make the world a better place and this is a way to get to get prepared and to learn and to hear from leaders and about how important our men in uniform men and women in uniform have been to to gain the freedoms that we have today and i promise you you won't regret it if you show up following the leak of the infamous access hollywood tape many liberty students began to make it clearer their president did not represent the opinion of the entire school while the employees were allegedly instructed not to post anything negative on social media about trump a facebook group called return your diploma was even created to protest jerry's decisions but something much more effective was actually needed to bring him down that process started in winter of 2017 when a freelance journalist named brandon received an anonymous message saying quote why does falwell need to own an lgbt-friendly hostel the hostel jerry falwell owned in miami was sometimes listed as a gay friendly accommodation so he was literally making money with what his school prohibited from its students following this revelation political published the journalist expose on the hostile which also mentioned giancarlo granda as the falwell's business partner it didn't take long for the media to find out more dirty secrets including how jerry and becky had met jean carlo how jerry partied at miami nightclubs and becky's secret photographs that had been brushed under the rug the revelations were followed by liberty employees statements about jerry falwell's dictatorship in the school and his way of ruling by fear that had been the only way that this man got what he wanted political also detailed how jerry had a rather unpleasant habit of discussing his intimate acts with his wife at work and showing provocative photos of becky to employees but their biggest problem was the affair jerry and becky did their best to hide the true nature of their relationship was jean carlo jerry even wrote him a recommendation letter for georgetown's real estate masters program when the 27 year old then got in the fallwells were overjoyed not because they were happy for john carlo but because they thought the young man would keep moving on with his life and forget them but according to the couple that didn't happen the relationship between the couple and john carlo only kept getting worse and when jerry then refused to pay giancarlo out of the hostel for two million dollars there was no coming back jean carlo claimed the stress was taking its toll on his mental health because becky and jerry continued to string him along and wouldn't let him live his life he became determined to give the fallwells what they deserved giancarlo told jerry quote since you're okay with ruining my life i am going to take the kamikaze route revenge is coming soon i'm taking everyone down with me with my side of the story end quote in turn jerry asked john carlo never to contact him and his family again at this point one would think that the smartest move would have been to lay low and avoid any more attention but instead jerry was all over the place posting conspiracy theories about the pandemic and keeping liberty open despite the lockdown after george floyd's death jerry tweeted a racist photo with people posing in blackface and a kkk hood needless to say the black population of lynchburg was not happy and then there was the now infamous instagram photo posted on august 2nd of 2020 somehow jerry thought as the president of a religious university that it was a good idea to upload a photograph of himself with his pants unzipped and something that looked like a rum and coke in his hand with his other arm wrapped around a pregnant woman those present at the time knew that jerry had dressed up as the main character julian from the canadian sitcom trailer park boys and that the drink was allegedly black bran mineral water he ordered off amazon but for everybody else the photo was the last straw just five days later on august 5th jerry falwell was put on indefinite leave by the liberty board of trustees after all jerry had violated his own school's code of conduct later that month it was time for the biggest hit of them all giancarlo granda had given an interview for reuters the article published on august 24th of 2020 was titled business partner of falwell's says affair with evangelical power couple spanned seven years and gave the main details of the affair between a pool boy and the first family of liberty university thank you for joining us this morning let's begin with their denial they say that you had an affair with mrs falwell but but that jerry falwell jr was not involved in any way but you say from the start they were both involved first off thank you for having me on um and jerry's line um that was his game plan from the beginning to just throw her under the bus which i i think speaks a lot about who he is about his character um and he was aware from day one of our relationships and he he did in fact watch so how would that work describe the encounters so let's go back to when i first met them i was 20 years old working at the fauna blue hotel working my way through college and you know i'm talking to some guests and i noticed this woman behind me staring at me and she was noticeably drunk and she was just flirting with me you know and then we start flirting back and forth um and then towards the end of my work shift she's like hey would you want to go back to my hotel room and as a single 20 year old i'm like yeah of course and and then she's like but my husband wants to watch and immediately i thought it was a bit strange and i backed off he said oh no but he he's not going to do anything he's just going to sit in the corner and he just he just wants to watch and it's his thing and she mentioned that they were actually at the at a swingers club the night before miami velvet and but it wasn't their thing they said it was kind of gross because there's too many people and they wanted a more intimate session so i had no idea who they were at the time you know after my work shift they called me through a blocked number um to schedule where to meet and we met at another hotel uh and i walk into the lobby and you know becky's sitting there waiting for me and we were both nervous at the time and then she offered me whiskey to relax to calm my nerves we talked for a bit i relaxed and then we went upstairs and jerry was laying on the bed he was laying on the bed he was drunk and he was giggling and again i'm kind of weirded out at this moment and i said hey if at any point you get jealous or you want me to back off just let me know and i'll walk out here he's like no no just just go for it um again on other occasions as well and and what would he be doing right i mean he i don't want to go too much into the details um i don't want to go too much into the details but um he he enjoyed watching the full story john carlos said will be told in his upcoming book off the deep end and a hulu documentary a day after the release of the interview liberty's board gave jerry falwell two options either he would step down voluntarily or he would be fired jerry chose the first option giancarlo has since said that he did enter into an intimate relationship with the fallwells willingly but as time passed he began to understand how the power couple preyed on him jean carlos said quote whether it was immaturity naivete instability or a combination thereof it was this mindset that the fall wells likely detected in deciding that i was the ideal target for their sexual escapades end quote [Music] and becky falwell groomed and used young men for years while holding on to their image as a good christian power couple until they couldn't what is it that makes a couple living a double life so eager for the attention of evangelicals and conservatives and just how much privilege does one need to get away with a lifetime of secrets while admonishing others for not living up to their fundamentalist values they pretend to portray jerry received severance pay from liberty university but the amount of that payment has been questioned early reports spoke of as much as 10.5 million dollars but the university later said that the media reports regarding the size and terms of jerry's severance were incorrect adding that the former president was eligible for two years base salary but in true evangelical turn the other cheek fashion liberty sued jerry falwell jr on april 15th of 2021 for 40 million dollars in damages for breach of contract the suit is currently ongoing in the end jerry and becky lost their position as the first family of his father's legacy and ruined their well-managed reputation in 2022 the couple told their story to vanity fair and actually claimed their future looks optimistic this has been the rise and fall of jerry falwell [Music] jr to save up today you may not understand but know there's a promised land and the day may be if you are a fan of learning about scams cults and cautionary tales be sure to like subscribe and hit that bell icon so you never miss an upload thank you for watching my name is josie and i hope you come back for the next video [Music] [Music] instead we still choose to shed blood over race getting up in my face like i'm somehow displaced and quick keep up the war we'll all be erased [Music] there's always [Music] shadows bow down

Channel: NOT THE GOOD GIRL

Views: 922,837

Keywords: jerry falwell, jerry falwell jr, becki falwell, giancarlo granda, juancarlo granda, hulu, documentary, book, liberty university, martin luther king jr, pool boy, michael cohen, donald trump, liberty lawsuit, lawsuit, sued, jerry fallwell, jim and tammy faye bakker, ptl, praise the lord, evangelist, evangelical

Id: sCB5nmtKdYQ

Length: 55min 25sec (3325 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 23 2022