Tammy Faye Messner Dies From Cancer
From LoveToKnow Celebrity
Tammy Faye Messner, the former talk show host, celebreality star and ex-wife of television evangelist Jim Bakker, passed away July 20, 2007 from inoperable cancer. She was 65.
Her Life and Career
Messner, who was also an evangelist, was widely known for her marriage to Jim Bakker. She was often seen wiping the tears away from her makeup-clad eyes during her husband's sermons on the Praise the Lord Network. Following his conviction and subsequent jail time (he defrauded PTL supporters of more than $150 million), Bakker and Messner divorced. She married construction mogul Roe Messner while Bakker was still in prison.
She went on to co-host the talk show, The Jim J. and Tammy Faye Show in the 1990s, and in 2004, she appeared in the second season of VH1's The Surreal Life with rapper Vanilla Ice, actor Erik Estrada and adult entertainer Ron Jeremy, among others. She was also the subject of the documentary films, The Eyes of Tammy Faye (1999) and Tammy Faye: Death Defying (2004).
Her Death
The announcement of Tammy Faye Messner's death came just two days after she appeared on CNN's Larry King Live. During that broadcast, she was frail and very thin, weighing only 65 pounds. According to People.com, Messner had said that she didn't want to know how much longer she was going to live. "I don't want my faith level to go down," she said. She passed away the next morning, and Larry King, per the family's request, announced her death the following night.
Her cancer was first diagnosed in 1993, and by 2004, it had spread. Three years later, she announced the disease was no longer treatable.
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