Evangelist Tammy Faye Bakker-Messner's Battle with Cancer is Over at 65
"Our family is deeply saddened by the news of the passing of Tammy Faye. She lived her life like the song she sang, 'If Life Hands You a Lemon, Make Lemonade.'" -Jim Bakker
(Kansas City, Missouri)—Tammy Faye Bakker Messner, the former televangelist and Christian singer died Friday morning of inoperable cancer, CNN's Larry King said Saturday night. She was 65. King said the family had asked him to make the delayed announcement. Messner was a guest on Larry King Live on Thursday. She told him she couldn't swallow food, and weighed only 65 pounds.
King said the family postponed the death announcement for a day so family members could gather. Messner was cremated and interred in a remote part of Kansas at the Kansas-Oklahoma state line, King said.
"The family appreciates all of the well wishes of so many people," the talk show host said on CNN. "She wanted a party," King added. "They're going to schedule a party in two to three weeks in Palm Springs, California. Her friends will be invited. And she wanted it to be a celebration. She died peacefully. Anyone who saw her on our show this week knew that she didn't have long."
King asked her Thursday if she were "a little scared." She replied, "A little bit," adding that she was mostly concerned about her family.
"Our family is deeply saddened by the news of the passing of Tammy Faye," her former husband Jim Bakker said late Sat. in a statement on his web site. "She lived her life like the song she sang, 'If Life Hands You a Lemon, Make Lemonade.'"
Bakker added, "My heart aches for my two children, Jamie Charles and Tammy Sue, who loved their mother dearly. They both told me their mom was so full of life that it is hard to believe she is gone."
Bakker noted that Tammy Sue stayed by her mother's side caring for her round the clock during the last year and that son Jamie Charles also spent as much time as he could with his mother prior to her death, taking her out to eat or shop.
"Tammy Faye's deep faith in God has kept her throughout her life as well as during these last days of her life," Bakker added. "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."
Quoting from the Bible, Bakker said, "God's Word declares of Heaven, 'He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death, sadness, crying, or pain, because all the old ways are gone.' This is the hope of our family."
After Messner divorced Bakker, to whom she was married for more than 30 years, she married former PTL contractor Roe Messner in 1993.
Messner underwent surgery for colon cancer in 1996. In 2004, she revealed that the disease had spread to her lungs, and in May 2007 announced that her doctors had stopped trying to treat the illness.
In her appearance on Larry King Live, Messner was a shadow of her former self. "I believe when I leave this earth, because I love the Lord, I am going straight to Heaven," she told King.
CNN reported that Messner told King she was bedridden most of the time, had trouble swallowing food—hence the weight loss—and was in almost constant pain.
But her sense of humor was reportedly still intact. On her web site, she wrote last Monday, "I crave hamburgers and french fries with LOTS of ketchup! When I can eat that again, it will be a day of victory!"
Asked by King what she would most like to be remembered for, Messner replied, "well, my eyelashes." Messner was known for her use of heavy makeup.
Tammy Faye Messner has also been known as one of the few evangelical Christians who had the support of the gay community, CNN reported. She was one of the first televangelists to reach out to those with AIDS. She told King in July, "When I went—when we lost everything, it was the gay people that came to my rescue, and I will always love them for that."
For those who criticized her work with gays Messner had a quick response, telling me in a 2002 interview published in Charisma Magazine, "I thought the Church was supposed to be a hospital and not a courtroom."
Despite her battle with cancer, Messner 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 by King 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 someday. I want you to find peace. I want you to find joy."
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