People News
Tammy Faye Messner, dead at 65
By Stone Martindale
Jul 22, 2007, 1:53 GMT

Tammy Faye Messner, the former televangelist and Christian singer who battled  inoperable cancer, died Friday morning, according to CNN's Larry King on Saturday night. He said the family had asked him to make the delayed announcement.

She was 65.  "She died peacefully," King said on CNN.

Messner was a guest on "Larry King Live" on Thursday. She said she couldn't swallow food, and weighed only 65 pounds.

When asked if she was scared, she replied,  "A little bit," adding that she worried about her family.

She made headlines on the Christian PTL Network with then-husband Jim Bakker, its host.

After divorcing a disgraced and scandal plagued Bakker, she married Christian construction magnate and former PTL contractor Roe Messner in 1993.

CNN reports that she underwent surgery for colon cancer in 1996. In 2004, she revealed that the disease had spread to her lungs.

"I believe when I leave this Earth, because I love the Lord, I am going straight to heaven," she said to Larry King.

Asked by King what she would most like to be remembered for, Messner replied, "well, my eyelashes."

Born Tammy Faye LaValley in International Falls, Minnesota, she married Bakker in 1961.

The Bakkers' 30-year-old son, Jay, is a pastor who co-founded the Revolution Church in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Tammy Faye has also been known as one of the few evangelical Christians who had the support of the gay community. She was one of the first televangelists to reachout to those with AIDS when it was a much-feared disease.

CNN reports that Tammy Faye recorded more than 25 albums and wrote several books. In 1996, she wrote her autobiography, "Telling it My Way." She also wrote "Run to the Roar," a book about overcoming fear, and in 2003 wrote her last book, "I Will Survive, and You Will Too."

Tammy Faye told King she kept her Christian faith, instructing her doctors not to tell her how much time they believed she had left. "I don't have any date written on me anywhere that says I'm going to die at any time, and so I just give it to the Lord," she said.

Asked if she had a message for her fans, she replied: "I'd like to say that I genuinely love you, and I genuinely care, and I genuinely want to see you in heaven some day. I want you to find peace. I want you to find joy."