Jim Bakker Kids: Meet His Seven Children, Family Life and Their Different Paths

Jim Bakker’s family life was shaped by two very different chapters of his career. The late televangelist became one of America’s best-known religious broadcasters through the PTL Club, but his public success was followed by a financial scandal, prison sentence and years of rebuilding his life and ministry.

Behind that highly public story was a family that grew across two marriages. Jim Bakker had seven children, including two biological children with his first wife, Tammy Faye Messner, and five adopted children with his second wife, Lori Beth Graham Bakker.

His older children grew up surrounded by cameras, television studios and the enormous PTL ministry. His younger children experienced a much quieter childhood after Bakker had left prison and established a new life in Branson, Missouri.

Tammy Sue

Tammy Sue Bakker-Chapman was Jim Bakker’s first child. She was born on March 2, 1970, to Jim and Tammy Faye.

Tammy Sue spent much of her childhood around her parents’ Christian television ministry. The PTL Club was a major part of the family’s daily life, and she appeared publicly alongside her parents during the ministry’s most successful years.

Her childhood changed dramatically when the PTL empire collapsed. The scandal surrounding her father’s ministry and his subsequent imprisonment meant that Tammy Sue experienced intense public scrutiny at a young age.

Despite those difficult years, she remained connected to her family’s Christian ministry and musical background. She later worked behind the scenes with The Jim Bakker Show and Morningside Church, where she became involved in the operation of her father’s post-PTL ministry.

Tammy Sue also built a family of her own. She and her husband, Doug Chapman, have two children, giving Jim Bakker grandchildren through his firstborn daughter.

Jay Bakker

Jamie Charles “Jay” Bakker was born on December 18, 1975. He was the younger of Jim and Tammy Faye’s two biological children.

Jay was only 11 years old when the PTL ministry collapsed, making the scandal and its aftermath a defining part of his adolescence. His father eventually went to prison, while his parents’ marriage also ended.

As Jay grew older, he openly discussed the emotional impact of his childhood. He has spoken about rebellion, trauma and alcoholism during his teenage years, describing a period when he struggled to process what had happened to his family.

His adult life eventually took a different religious path from his father’s.

A Different Path

Jay became a Christian pastor and author and later co-founded Revolution Church. His approach to Christianity became notably more progressive and inclusive than the traditional theology associated with his father.

He became particularly known for welcoming people who felt excluded from traditional church environments, including LGBTQ+ Christians and others who had felt marginalized by organized religion.

That difference sometimes highlighted the complicated nature of Jay’s relationship with his father. Although their religious views were not always aligned, Jim remained an important figure in Jay’s life.

Following Jim Bakker’s death on October 5, 2026, Jay publicly reflected on their complicated relationship, offering a glimpse into the personal side of a father and son whose lives had been shaped by extraordinary circumstances.

Five More Children

Jim’s family grew again after he married Lori Beth Graham in 1998.

In 2002, Jim and Lori adopted five siblings from inner-city Phoenix, Arizona. The adoption was particularly meaningful because it allowed the brothers and sisters to remain together instead of being separated through the foster care system.

The couple made a deliberate effort to give the children a more private upbringing than Jim’s older children had experienced.

Two of the adopted children have been publicly identified as Maricela, affectionately known as “Little Lori,” and Ricky. The identities of the other three siblings have largely remained private.

That privacy appears to have been an important part of the family’s decision to protect the children from the level of public attention that had surrounded Jim’s earlier career.

Life at Morningside

The five adopted siblings were raised primarily in Branson, Missouri, where Jim and Lori established their post-prison ministry at the Morningside community.

This was a very different environment from the PTL years.

Instead of growing up during the height of a nationally watched television empire, the younger children were raised during the later chapter of Jim’s life, when his ministry was centered around Morningside and The Jim Bakker Show.

Their childhood was consequently much less exposed to the national media spotlight.

Two Family Chapters

Jim Bakker’s seven children represent two distinct eras of his life.

Tammy Sue and Jay grew up during the extraordinary rise and collapse of PTL, experiencing both their parents’ television fame and the devastating consequences of the ministry’s scandal.

The five adopted siblings entered the family years later, after Jim had served his prison sentence and married Lori. Their upbringing was centered on a rebuilt family life and the Morningside ministry.

That contrast makes the Bakker family story unusual. The seven children shared the same father, but they experienced very different versions of his life.

His Family Legacy

Jim Bakker died on October 5, 2026, bringing an end to a life that had been marked by enormous success, controversy, imprisonment, religious broadcasting and a later return to ministry.

His children remain an important part of that complicated legacy.

Tammy Sue continued working within the family ministry, while Jay established his own identity as a pastor and author with a markedly different theological outlook. The five adopted siblings, meanwhile, have largely remained outside the public spotlight.

Together, their stories show how the consequences of Jim Bakker’s public career extended far beyond television and religion. For his children, the PTL years were not simply a chapter in American televangelism. They were also the circumstances in which they grew up, found their own identities and, in very different ways, built lives beyond their father’s shadow.