Tammy Faye Bakker Messner is best known for her love of mascara and for creating the biggest Christian television network, "Praise The Lord" Ministries with her then husband Jim Bakker. In 1987 all of that changed when PTL went bankrupt, Jim went to prison, and Tammy had to find the strength to make it on her own.  

You grew up poor with 8 other siblings?

I’m the oldest. I grew up in International Falls, Minnesota. Right there on the Canadian border. It gets cold up there. It’s the coldest in the nation, but I love it!

I’m a down to Earth Girl country girl. I’ll never forget where I came from.

I don’t collect anything except shoes & purses. I love shoes & purses. My Aunt Virginia use to call me Purse Poor. I spent so much money on purses that I didn’t have any money left to put in my purse.

I make cool cigar box purses. I make all kinds of things. I make jewelry. I can make just about anything if you can do it with your hands. I’m very crafty. I love to decorate. I’m good at decorating TV studio sets and I pretty much decorate my home like I’d do a 
set for television.

I like Chili’s a lot and I also like Applebee’s. I love Pizza, but I don’t sit in front of the Pizza Hut and eat.

I like Chocolate and Pizza period. Nothing else. I think everybody knows I’m a Chocoholic. I also live on Diet Coke, which isn’t good. I drink about 6 a day. Maybe more. I have a diet Coke sitting somewhere all the time. I’ll drink them cold, warm, flat, and fizzy. I’ll drink them a day old. I love Diet Coke!

They’ve missed out on something there. I don’t know why they don’t. Maybe I’m too old? I feel about 25 inside.

What is a vegetable? Is Pumpkin Pie considered a vegetable? When I had cancer I changed my eating habits a lot. I began to eat more vegetables and cut out the sweets. I’ve become much more careful about how I eat. I think it’s important to keep my immune system healthy so the cancer doesn’t come back again.

I do. I work on it. I keep an eye on it. If I get over a certain weight I cut back for a few days. I can easily take 5 pounds off in a week.

Heck no. Generally, what I take is Slim-Fast. I love Slim-Fast. I don’t eat breakfast. I start everyday with Slim-Fast, which is full of vitamins. It tastes good. Of course I drink the Milk Chocolate flavor.

It’s very satisfying and if you want something really good put it in the freezer. Let it get almost frozen, but not quite. Put a little dab of cool whip on the top. Oh my gosh! You’d think you died and went to heaven. I’ve tried other drinks and I think Slim-Fast is the best. It’s the only one I’ve been able to stomach so far. Slim-Fast gives you lots of energy and all the vitamins you need.

After I went on Television. That was the first time I ever put on makeup as far as wearing lipstick and all that. My girlfriend put mascara on me when I was 16. That was all the makeup I put on until after I was married.

I never knew anything different so I didn’t think much about it. I was so happy when I found out God didn’t give a heck that I wore makeup or not. He looks from the heart not on the outside. Once I finally realized that I was free.

There’s no such thing. Everybody ought to have the privilege to put on as much as they want.

I think drag queens have to wear it.

He and I are good friends. He makes a more beautiful woman than any woman I’ve ever seen.

I don’t care how they wear their makeup. I don’t judge anybody by their makeup. It’s not a big deal to me.

I have absolutely no idea.

I had fun doing that. I got thousands of e-mails. I have read every single one of them. I had an atheist e-mail me saying I don’t believe in God, but I’m going to pray for you just in case. I had every kind of denomination. It was one of the most unbelievable things that has ever happen to me in my life. Every time I do a show the e-mails pour in. To me e-mail is such a delightful thing.

Ron Jeremy just called me and I told him I was well. He said God answered my prayers. It’s so cute because Ron’s a New York Jew and I told him he was right. God did answer his prayer. A couple of days ago Vanilla Ice called me up. He said I’m just checking on you to see how you’re doing. He’s an awesome young man with a tender heart.

Erik Estrada and I talk. I call and leave messages on Trishelle’s machine. I just give her little momma messages you know. I tell her I love you & I hope you’re doing well. Just kind of encourage her.

There’s no one I wouldn’t take out to eat or have in my home.

I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe that we must be born again. I believe there’s such a thing as salvation. People call it religion. It’s not. It’s salvation. I believe it’s something that happens between you & God that becomes a personal thing.

Absolutely not. My bible says that doesn’t happen.

After this it’s all over. When we’re gone from here it’s heaven or hell. That’s what I believe.

Have you seen visions? Has an Angel talked to you?

No. I know that God guides me and directs me when I need direction & I don’t know what to do. I believe God healed me of cancer along with the doctors and their knowledge. I think he’s the healer and he’s the reason I beat lung cancer in 5 months. The fact that people prayed for me. If I don’t know what to do I just ask God. If I’m not supposed to do something he closes the door & doesn’t make the opportunity available anymore.

I’ve seen times were I feel in my heart I should be doing something. The feeling won’t go away so I just go ahead and do it. I feel everyone can have God as their friend.

I love people and God loves people. As far as I’m concerned we all have the same hurts, the same wants, the same desires, and the same needs. When I’ve gone to foreign lands they’re the same as we are. I think the world is basically the same.

There’s a devil and he’s alive and well. He does his job really well. I think the devil is what makes people cruel and mean. He causes people to murder and to do horrible acts to each other.

Is there a rhyme or reason to why God is so bad towards certain ministers?

He’s not bad towards anybody. Everybody goes through crap. It’s not just the poor ministers. God allows different people to go through different things to make us strong, to build our character, and to light our path.

I have a verse that I live, work, eat, sleep, and talk. It’s from Thessalonians in the bible: "In everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."

If I know I’m walking with the Lord and trying to live a Christian life that whatever comes in my pathway that he allows it. If he allows it I can take it. I’m not going to complain about it. Who wouldn’t you go through something to help a lot of people go through it? I would.

With all the adversity I went through I understand what it’s like to lose everything. I lost my home, my car, my family, all my finances, and my reputation. Everything. I know what it’s like and I know you can survive it. I know you can make it if you just stand firm. That it’ll all come back.

We never dreamed that could happen. We just worked hard, we loved God, we loved people, and that’s what happened. It was more surprising to us than it was to anybody.

We did the show for almost 30 years.

It’s almost like it happened to somebody else. It’s as if it didn’t even happen to me.

When I was on television I pictured some people sitting in their house and that’s whom I was talking to. I never dreamed that there were millions and millions of people out there. In fact our ratings went over Johnny Carson’s many times. I could never think that big. I never thought that much about it. We had the largest Satellite Network in the world at the time.

Sure I was. Jim & I went to a marriage workshop three times. The marriage workshop we created is the one we went to ourselves. We created them because we were having problems. What more can you say about that?

You set up charities to help people out.

We set up charities all over the world. Not just the United States.

Wind me up and away I go. You get done and you make another one. They still order the albums from me. I put them on CD. I still sell lots & lots of CD’s. My favorite song in the whole world is Blessed Assurance. I’ve recorded that two or three times.

My albums alone and the books we wrote more than covered our salaries. We gave all that money back to the ministry. We never took one dime. I have three Gold records hanging on my wall. We gave all those profits back to the ministry. People don’t want to know about the good stuff. If they knew the good stuff then they’d have to realize that they believed something that was not true and people don’t want to be wrong.

The media makes up their own way the story should be written and that has been very sad to me.

It did. It got bigger than Jim & I. We were just two kids from Michigan and Minnesota. We didn’t even have a year of Bible College under our belt. We didn’t know how to do television. No one taught us. We just went on and did it.

We just got an apology from one of the main men who destroyed it. I just got a long e-mail and he apologized profusely. I have gotten so many apologies it’s absolutely unbelievable. This is one of the leaders of PTL that we trusted and found out later he couldn’t be trusted. We didn’t know that. He wrote and apologized. That meant so much to me. He asked that we’d keep it confidential, but I’m grateful that he said I’m sorry. He needed to do it for himself not me or not for us.

Yea. Jerry has never said anything to me. I’ve wanted to speak to him, but he won’t speak to me.

Very few people were around. Hardly anybody. It was an interesting study of human nature. We persevered in God. It was all God. He said Tammy you don’t need people I’ll help you. That’s what I felt God was saying to us. He made some unbelievable things happen for us during that time when I didn’t know where the next house payment was going to come from. I didn’t know where the next meal was coming from.

It was very sad. It was the saddest time in my life. My children too. We were all hurting more than anybody will ever know. There no way to talk about hurt like that because there’s no way to talk about the depth of hurt. There’s no way to put it in words. The depth of hurt can’t be put in words. Hurt is a feeling. It’s not something you can talk easily about. It’s an emotion. 

It was more of a campground with a big waterslide in it. It was more of a ministry place. It’s still there and somebody just bought it. They’re opening all the buildings back up again. Their first service was last Sunday. Christians have bought it again. They reopened up the Heritage grand, which is a huge, gorgeous hotel. They’ve opened up the upper room again which is copied from the upper room in Israel.

They do fabulous plays at our big Amphitheater. My children still love Heritage and talk about the place. We’re all glad it’s reopening again and is going to be used for the gospel’s sake. It’s like a small city. It’s tons of acres. It was huge and went for miles & miles.

He is a shy person. I have a high respect for him. I still think he did the best talk show that ever was. I still think he was the best one in the Christian world. Everybody has tried to copy him ever since. I don’t care what they say there’s nobody that can come up to what Jim did. I have great respect for him. I wish he’d do it again. He’d kick everybody in the butt. He still has the ability to do it. Nothing really has changed.

Yea, whenever the grandkids have something going on in school. Jim & his new wife Lori will come down. Of course my new husband Roe Messner & I will go and have lots of fun together.

I laugh harder than they do. Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry alone. I had to learn to do that. It hurt badly at first because I was hurting horrible. My little heart was broken in pieces. I prayed to die and I prayed that our whole family would die, but thank God he did not answer that prayer. I’m awful glad he didn’t.

I love Jm Bullock. He and I are like brother and sister. I had 11 different people I could have chosen for the show. Jm and I have the same wild personality. We say what we think and think what we say. We are very easy going people, but yet we’re very over the top in our own ways.

I’ve been on Drew Carey’s show. I love Drew. I love the lady on the Golden Girls Estelle Getty who played the Grandma. She came on the show totally prepared not to like me. She said by the time the show was over, "I fell in love with you."

Now she’s very ill and I feel sad. I wish there was some way I could go and see her, but she’s too sick. Betty White went to visit her and she didn’t even know Betty. Estelle is going through a hard crisis in her life right now. I love her. She was on our show three different times and I told her I thought she was the cutest little lady I ever saw in my life & how much I loved her work. I met Phyllis Diller who is an awesome woman.

There are people I would’ve liked to have met, but maybe I’m glad I didn’t. I wish I’d met Lucy and Liberace. Liberace and I were at the same hospital at the same time. He was dying of AIDS at the time and I had Pneumonia. I wanted to go see him, but my doctors felt that in my delicate condition it would be best that I didn’t go into a sick room with anyone.

Liberace told the people who worked for him to make sure Jim and Tammy get to see my house. They called us up after I got out of the hospital and Liberace had died and they invited us over to see his house. We then went through his home. I cried because I loved Liberace. I thought he was a great, great man. He was a good human being.

I wish I’d met Elvis too. They said he watched PTL all the time. I would have loved to have met Elvis. He was one of the neatest people. They’ll never let him die. Elvis will never die. He’ll always be around in people's minds which is good.

Women’s Entertainment has just bought 90 minutes of a new documentary about me. The people who did "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" did a new documentary on me. They were with me during my first Chemotherapy treatment clear on through to when I found out the great news that I was cancer free. Randy and Fenton of Worlds of Wonder produced it. They’ve been kind people and they’ve changed my life.

These are two gay friends of yours?

Most of my friends are gay. I’m not kidding you.

Most of my good buddies are gay. I like a lot of them. Many of them have stayed at the house. They come through to see me. I’ve got so many gay friends that I write to and who I’ve adopted. I’ve got one young man who I’ve unofficially adopted. He calls me mom. I try to help him through some of the things he’s going through in his life right now. I’ve kind of unofficially adopted several young gay men. I’m just there for them as mom. They all call me mom. I answer to that name happily and with great humility. I preach to a lot of gay people.

There are a lot of Christians in the gay community too. Some of the nicest people I’ve met in my life ever are gay and my husband agrees with me.

I know it is and that makes me sad. Your life shouldn’t be any tougher than anyone else’s. I have a special love in my heart for the gay and lesbian community. I have these two lesbian ministers that I go preach for all the time.

They have a wonderful church. I’m happy because for a long time the guys would fill my one-woman shows. We’d have a ball together, but very seldom would the girls come. Now they’ve opened up their hearts towards me too. To me people are just people. I don’t care what they do in their bedrooms. That doesn’t make any difference to me.

That’s their beliefs, but the church is suppose to love everyone. I think it’s terrible what the church has done to the gay community. We should at least agree to disagree and live in harmony. I want to be part of the church that helps bring us all together. I want to welcome the gay and lesbian community into the church. 

I met dad and mom Bush. I met president Reagan. Jim flew on Air Force One with two of presidents. He flew with Jimmy Carter and he flew with Ronald Reagan.

That is a privilege.

He felt it to be that. He felt honored to be a part of that. I met Nancy Reagan like everybody else. You line up and shake hands. With mom and dad Bush we were at some place where they live with a lot of other people. Mrs. Barbara Bush was kind to us and took a couple of us girls upstairs and showed us a rug she was making. She was very, very kind. She was very down to Earth and homey. She is a wonderful person.

Rosie O Donnell said she could sing the whole PTL theme. She said I bet you can’t. I said no I can’t. She sang the whole theme. I couldn’t sing it. She watched our show and told me I taught her how to do TV. I’ve heard a lot of people say that. Kathie Lee came and was on our television show.

Why would I not like anybody? There are people I’d rather not be around. It’s not that I dislike them. It’s just I don’t want to be around them. It’s not because you don’t like them it’s because there’s certain people we enjoy more than others.

I’m sure I do somewhere. I can get riled up just like anybody else.

I would like to do a show like Tammy’s House Party again. It was really, really fun. There wasn’t anything we didn’t conquer. We went for the gusto.

I would like to do a television show. I think a lot of people think I’m too old. They give people with a lot less experience than I’ve had TV shows. I think I could do a show that would be fun. Maybe it would be too clean. I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s because I have high morals. I won’t swear or talk about sex. I won’t do all that stuff on TV. We were a reality show before their was a reality show. We had no scripts. We were live. 

I’d still like to work with young people today in a kid’s show. I want to know what makes kids tick. I want to know what’s the difference between today’s generation and yesterday’s generation.

I love baby dolls. I love dogs & cats. I love animals more than anything. If I could I would rescue every dog from every dog pound. My ex-husband would tease me that I loved animals more than people. That’s not true. I’ve got two dogs and two fish right now. I’d have birds if my husband would let me. He thinks they’re too noisy.

I love Target. I love TJ Max and I love Marshall’s. Anything that says resale on it I’m heading there. I like anything that’s baggy & sags & drags. I’m kind of a gypsy at heart. 

It worked out good because I got free wigs. I have a makeup line called, "Heaven". It’s a neat makeup line that they sell in boutiques and beauty parlors. It’s got my face on it.

We worked hard to make good makeup. I wasn’t going to put something out there I wouldn’t use myself. I’ve got good colors and fun things. I didn’t want it tested on animals.

We got our makeup line altogether and you’re not going to believe this. Someone asked about Mascara. I was in shock. It was the first time I forgot about the mascara. I didn’t even think about my makeup line carrying mascara.

Mascara is your bread and butter.

Right now we’re looking for good mascara. I want something waterproof because that’s all I wear.

I stick with black. I stick with L’Oreal Lash out. I think black mascara looks good on everybody. I think everybody could look better accentuating their eyes a little bit. I believe the eyes are windows to the soul. I think you can tell a lot about a person from their eyes and by the way they look or don’t look at you.

If you have a little bit of eye makeup and lipstick you’re ready to go. I didn’t say false eyelashes. It’s important to care about yourself. I look at women who don’t wear makeup and think who do they think they are that they can get by without it. It’s the insecure ones that wear it.

No, never. I do it for myself. I don’t do it for somebody else. I do it because I care about myself. I want to look the best I can in any situation.

I am the queen of makeup & mascara and not one big Makeup Company has asked me to be their spokesperson. Even if they did it to make fun of me it would sell their makeup for them.

Oh sure…heck yes. I make fun of myself more than anybody makes fun of me.

Lots of it! I honestly don’t wear as much as I claim to. I really don’t.

I don’t like anything natural. I don’t like natural. No, I don’t!

I think if you’re going to wear makeup people ought to know you’re wearing it.

I get bored easily. When I get bored I change. I’m a blonde again. I’ve been a redhead for years.

Definitely. I’ll tell you redheads have lots of fun too.

I loved John Wayne. He has always been a hero to me as far as a man. He was a Marlboro man.

What do you want to be remembered for?

I want people to know that I lived what I ministered. I walked my talk. I look up to Billy Graham because he walked his talk.

He was there when Jim got out of Prison. Billy invited Jim up to his house and was kind to him. They gave him a wallet because he didn’t even have a wallet out of prison. He didn’t have anything and Graham helped him up. Billy Graham is my hero. I think he is a modern day hero of believing what you preach.

If that can be on my tombstone, "She walked her talk" then I will be a happy person.

-Randy Waage
randy@retrocrush.com

Find out more about Tammy check out her website at www.tammyfaye.com

If you get the chance rent or buy the great documentary about her life & the PTL ministries called, "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" 

You can also watch for Tammy in repeats of the 2nd season of The Surreal Life. 

For the die hard fans of Tammy Faye Bakker Messner you can listen to the entire interview in 4 sections: Tammy1, Tammy2, Tammy3, Tammy4

Thanks again Tammy for the interview. Quite a few of Tammy's songs are catchy and I would love to hear a few of them remixed into dance mixes. Come on homo DJ's help us out!

CLICK HERE for a special retroCRUSH Greeting from Tammy Faye