August 10–17, 2000

20 questions

Tammy Faye Messner

The eyes have it: Tammy Faye steps out of the shade

Imagine you’re kicking back on a Saturday afternoon, watching reruns of Chip ’n’ Dale, when one of the chipmunks starts talking right at you. That’s a little what it feels like talking to Tammy Faye Messner. With her troweled-on makeup and tarantula eyelashes, Messner (then the wife of televangelist Jim Bakker) became a living punchline in the late 1980s, a symbol of fundamentalist Christian excess. Plus, she was just so damn creepy. Long since divorced from Jim and married to developer Roe Messner, Tammy Faye has made several attempts at getting herself back in the limelight — most notably a short-lived talk show with co-host Jim J. Bullock. But her ticket to rediscovery may just end up being Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato’s The Eyes of Tammy Faye, a tongue-in-cheek documentary which, while covering the scandals which led to Jim and Tammy’s ouster from their own religious broadcasting empire, shows her attempting a secular comeback, submitting to a makeover for a magazine shoot and even pitching talk-show concepts to a producer of Cops. Despite the fact that Jim was jailed for fraud, Tammy Faye still maintains her and her husband’s innocence. She spoke by phone from her hotel in Manhattan.

Watching the film, it occurred to me that the scandal cost you not just your marriage, your career, your reputation, but your ability to preach. Your flock really seems to have deserted you.

Here we were on television every single day for 25 years, and what hurt the most was how people could turn against us, knowing that they were with us for 25 years on TV and knew that we could not do what we were accused of. That’s what hurt me so bad — that the press could actually take people who believed in us and loved us and trusted us, and turn their mind, their thinking around against us. I didn’t even think that would ever be possible.

The oddest scene in the film comes when you arrange a meeting with Charles Shepard, who won the Pulitzer for reporting on Jim’s financial misdeeds.

It was very nerve-wracking. I wanted to meet Charles, and I got a new respect for him when he said he would meet me. Because I thought any man that would face me after the lies that he’s written, and knows that he’s written, and won the Pulitzer Prize doing it, I had a certain amount of respect for him.… He never did ever say he was sorry, but I didn’t expect that. I’ve forgiven all the people connected with those things, and I just move on with life. I have a little thing printed on my refrigerator that forgiveness is the greatest gift you can give yourself. It’s the only way you can go on in life and get past hurt.

Does it surprise you that The Eyes of Tammy Faye has been playing gay and lesbian film festivals?

I’m just so grateful to [gay audiences] for supporting the film. I think that says a lot about their character. They’ve been so kind to me. While Roe was in prison [for bankruptcy fraud], the gay community literally took care of me. They sent me money, they sent me beautiful, gorgeous clothes with my name on them, they sent me cards and they would call me. They just literally took care of me while Roe was gone, and became my dear friends. We just had a gay couple stay with us a few nights ago, and we barbecued outside and just had an awesome time. I am really very touched and very honored by the fact that they care about me.

Don’t fundamentalists believe that homosexuality is wrong, though?

I just believe that each person has to judge that for themselves; it’s between them and God. My position is not to judge them; my position is to love them.