Tammy Faye Messner, known by millions as television evangelist Tammy Faye Bakker, died Friday. She was 65.

Messner, who was battling a form of inoperable lung and colon caner, passed peacefully in her home near Kansas City, Mo where she had been receiving hospice care for months.

Known for her over-the-top make-up and larger than life personality, Messner rose to fame in the 1980s with former husband Jim Bakker as evangelists and host of the PTL Club television ministries.

  The couple became embroiled in a scandal after Jim was accused of defrauding millions of PTL followers. Messner would eventually divorce Bakker, with whom she was married to for 30 years and had two children with.

After loosing control of PTL to Jerry Falwell , Messner told reporters “I wish they had killed me.”

She would later marry Joe Messner. And in recent years she reinvented herself to a younger audience. Hosting a syndicated talking show in the late 1990s and appearing in “The Drew Carry Show” on ABC. In 2004, she stared in Vh1’s reality series “The Surreal Life,” alongside 90’s rapper Vanilla Ice and porn star Ron Jeremy.

Messner gave her final television appearance Wednesday (see story here) on CNN’s Lary King Live. Weighing only 65 lbs, Messner appeared up beat and hopeful, telling King she had managed to put on 5 lbs within the last few months and that she hoped to eat a hamburger soon.

        Jim Bakker said in a statement posted to his Web site that his ex-wife’s “deep faith in God has kept her throughout her life as well as during these last days of her life. In her last 48 hours she shared her faith in Jesus Christ on worldwide television with millions of people. She is now in Heaven with her Mother and Grandmother and Jesus Christ, the one who she loves and has served from childhood. That is the comfort I can give to all who loved her.”

None Found

Filed under: TheMag